A beggar comes to a shashlyk (barbecue) cafe and asks the owner for a piece of meat. The owner does not want to give away any pieces for free, and sends the beggar away. Hungry, the beggar sneaks into the cafe and holds a piece of bread over the barbecue pit to catch the delicious smoky flavor. The owner is outraged, he grabs the beggar by the collar and drags him to Hodja Nasreddin to ask for judgment. “He stole from me and must pay!”, the shop owner exclaims. Seeing that the beggar has no money, Hodja Nasreddin offers to pay for him. He grabs a pouch of silver coins and walks up to the shop owner. “Here is your payment”, says Hodja and rings the coins by his ear, laughing.

“I think about it very often”, my husband said one day. Several months later, our dog refused to eat his hypoallergenic kibble. “We should wave our turkey stew over his bowl, maybe it will do the trick, like it did for that beggar”, my husband said, and I found it hilarious. Clearly, no particle of turkey stew would transfer to the dog’s bowl and thus make it more palatable, but would it do the trick nevertheless? Would being in proximity to the desirable provide the illusion of possessing it? Spoiler alert: for our dog it didn’t. But the longer I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it works on people all the time.

For most of the people in Central Asia the following three conditions are true: a) they are muslim, b) they are poor, and c) they can travel to the Middle East fairly easily. This historical and cultural background results in an irrepressible desire to be rich and live like the rich do. Women want to wear designer hijabs, Birkin bags, and Cartier bracelets. Men want to drive G-Wagons and receive a second wife (tokal) as their birthday present. In other words, to be a Crazy Rich Arab is a wet dream of every muslim born in the middle of Eurasian steppes.

The reality, however, is often not that glamorous. People fly to Dubai to take enough pictures in front of the Burj Khalifa to fill their Instagram feeds for a year, while gawking at the Graff stores and wearing clearance rack Armani Exchange. More than 80% of the working-age population in my country are in debt, which is used to buy property, cars, vacation trips, and groceries. Many take loans to pay for their weddings and show off their non-existent wealth. And you can’t take a step in a Central Asian megapolis without being bombarded by a multitude of fake Louis Vuitton bags. Is this behavior a “fake it till you make it” situation or a “meat flavored bread” situation? Is there a difference?

On an arguably smaller and more evasive scale, we can see those acts of sneaking into the kitchen in other, non-material manifestations. We post Instagram stories in expensive restaurants, pursing our filled lips and flaunting bouquets of 101 red roses, in hopes of marrying a rich man that gives us a Bentley as a push present and is approved by our moms. We invent social media careers and chase the following in hopes of becoming successful business owners. What if we choose to have a child with an unreliable mommy’s boy who spends his income on “happy ending” massages, will it make them change and finally live up to our expectations?

I remember first joining the big shiny corporate world, excited to play with big kids, prepared to bust my ass to make a difference. Several years passed before I realized that my job was to make rich people richer by serving them at the table where no seat was reserved for myself. I was, and still am, following a carrot dangling in front of my horse-face, chewing on a piece of flatbread in a room full of delicious barbeque aroma.

I remember being in relationships with narcissists, holding for dear life on one green flag in a sea of glaring red, making up excuses for someone else, feeling good about myself for “seeing the best in people”. I remember being stuck in a destructive cycle, where every promise and every piece of validation were a salty garlic butter sauce, spread over the heap of bullshit I’ve been fed on a daily basis. The condiment disguised the shitty taste too well, but never changed the essence of it.

If I knew—truly knew—what I was doing, would I have behaved differently? Would I be able to see all instances of delusion for what they were—just me lying to myself? To be honest, in some way I always knew. I knew that no amount of wellness routines would cure my disordered eating patterns. I knew that fundamentally people never change. I knew that if I wanted to have a steak I had to kill a cow.

In some cases I chose, maybe subconsciously, to be delusional. In other cases I suspected foul play but decided to not trust my instincts in hope of being proven wrong. Not every “meat flavored bread” situation was a “fake it till you make it” situation for me—sometimes it was just an “interesting bread” that kept me invested in picking up the breadcrumbs.

I’m sure that the beggar from the story was aware that his piece of bread wouldn’t turn into something else. I’m sure that people who go in debt to take a walk in a Dubai mall know it deep down, too. I believe deeply that no amount of delusion can hide the reality, no matter how hard we try. Moreover, I imagine a life of complete honesty with yourself to be cruel and cynical. Maybe this is exactly what we need to keep ourselves from going insane in a world where success is the most valued trait a person can possess: being in proximity to what we desire. Maybe without “faking” no “making it” can happen at all? Maybe this is partially what makes us happy—having a piece of bread that smells like meat, showing it off to other beggars whose bread smells only like yeast.

In this excerpt we follow Makhambet through the eyes of Nurbal—a slave woman gifted to him by Khan Allah Kuli.

Melodic trills of bells hanging from the leather waterskins, shouting water carriers, creaking wheels of the carriages, pleading beggars and barking town guards lurking in groups along the narrow streets of Khiva, searching for targets and bounty—all, interfused with the bellowing of camels, filled the street with a dizzying noise. An oncoming caravan of Bukharans raised a cloud of dust. Makhambet steadied the horse.

After the last camel had passed, the riders moved onto the market street. In deep alcoves along the walls small traders tried to outshout each other. The crowd became thicker the closer they moved to the bazaar.

Cripples and dervishes, spice traders and donkey herders, butchers and bakers, cooks preparing pilaf and soup on the sidewalks, silent nomads coming from Uzbek, Kazakh, Karakalpak, and Turkmen villages, rich men parting the crowd with the force of servants and guards, vagabond warriors—or maybe, simple outlaws—searching for a suitable ringleader or master, pimps prowling in the back alleys, money changers, healers, people ready to provide any service—all sorts of folks can be met on the main road of Khiva, a city of the sacred well, holy Jeikhun river, forty madrasas and forty mosques, and countless minarets and mausoleums.

Coming from Iran and India, Afghanistan and Aday, Tibet and Mongolia, from the Nogays of Volga river, from traders of Samarkand and Kokand, from the Great and Lesser Kazakh Hordes, the caravans merge together into a single flow on the main road of the city. Right there, blacksmiths and potters, as if competing with each other, craft wondrous pieces of workmanship from metal and clay. Child-touts scurry about the legs of horses and people. Only women are silent and fearful. Hiding under their burqas, they obediently give way to everyone—tramps and lords, hangmen and dervishes. This is the main street of Khiva where the richest of twenty neighbourhoods is located.

Through the thin fabric of her veil, Nurbal curiously looked at the crowd, towers and minarets, whose colors were as bright and beautiful, as dirty and dusty were the streets. After a long journey on the back of the camel through the mountain ranges and uninhabited steppes, through camps, small settlements and large villages, this city seemed big and strange to her, as was the city of Herat through which she passed along with the caravan.

She watched the silhouettes of the women under their burqas, trying to guess their age. Her worried gaze followed her new master, each touch of his hand making her shiver. She felt awkward and uncomfortable sitting in a saddle in front of him. She felt scared of his silence.

On the way to Khiva Nurbal was often distracted by the herders and guards and their stories, and the monotonous road made her calm and numb. She often dozed off listening to the tired camels grunting quietly and caravan superintendents joking and arguing. The caravan that took her away from her home was the last thing that connected her to her birthplace. But the trader gifted her to the Khan of Khiva, and the Khan gave her to this mysterious man. The last piece of connection broke. Her destiny was in the hands of a stranger now.

The new master was rugged and didn’t speak to her. His friends, riding behind, were silent, too. She didn’t ask who they were, and they did the same. Standing by the throne of the Khan, Nurbal had heard that the new master was a poet and a warrior. What is better, living in a Khan’s harem or in a poet’s house?

But is there a point in contemplating? Does it matter? She is a woman. The poet’s arms are around her. People are stepping aside in front of his golden horse with a white mane, its head throwing back now and then, demanding to loosen the reins. The horse’s stride is uneven—sometimes hasty, sometimes hopping and almost breaking into a gallop, pushing into the crowd…

Sometimes the sounds are overwhelming. The cars are too loud, the air is too dusty, the people passing by are too excited. I wince and make a puckered face, and we try to outrun them by sticking to each other’s side like two pieces of Kit Kat and moving our feet in sync. Sometimes the escape is so successful that we find ourselves walking through the smaller and darker streets that are made invisible to the rest of the city by thick tree trunks and unkempt flower pots. I can hear our sweatpants and t-shirts swishing from the movement and our sneakers rubbing the pebbles in the pavement, heel to toe.

One of the things that my husband and I instantly connected over is talking quietly—it’s in our culture. We are raised to talk in lower volumes around our elders, we are reprimanded for shouting and crying in public. We are taught to be polite—and being loud is a gross violation of that rule. The voices are rarely raised, no matter the environment or occasion. Having a conversation in a busy cafe is often a task of coordination between catching the chopped strings of sound and deciphering the movements of lips. Sometimes the topic wanders away, and then it’s “I thought you said…” and laughter.

To me, talking to people quietly feels intimate. Our voices are natural and relaxed, our attention undivided. Walking in an empty grocery store, the cashier greets me in almost a whisper, and I think of them as a friend, and respond with the same peacefulness and warmth. “Do you want a bag?” they ask slightly louder, but never in full volume. Shaking my head is enough. No small talk, just two strangers interacting in a familiar hushed manner that feels secretive and innate, the noises of car engines outside more distinct than our words.

I remember being 11 years old, still an only child, lying on the pink carpeted floor of my room in a house that is too big for my mom and me. She is away, or hiding somewhere upstairs, and I am alone, flat on my back, eyes wide open, deliberately frozen in movement and thought. I am listening to the ticking of a big round clock hanging on the pink wall, and counting the seconds. An hour passes. The house doesn’t make a sound.

I remember being slightly older and looking after my new baby brothers. They are whiny and pugnacious, and my mom doesn’t always have the nerve to handle them. She explodes, punishes, demands silence. We enjoy the reprieve independently—her with a cup of tea, me with a book. By that time in my life, I know the lesson too well. So well, in fact, that it transforms from something learned the hard way to what is now a part of myself: the older I get, the less repellent I become to the idea of restraining my emotions and calming down—first in behavior, then in consciousness.

Even after all those years and no matter how hard I try, I never seem to master the craft of suppressing the noise that seeps into my brain from outside, like the sand. At work, I cringe when colleagues talk loudly during meetings and change my seat to move away from them. I often find hyperactive people disturbing, and their quick gestures and piercing voices frighten me. I run from the confrontations because I can’t handle the clamor of facts, emotions, and heightened tones. Sometimes I catch myself thinking too loudly, and I try to run from that, too.

I feel the worst when the noise transcends the sound and everything around me becomes loud by simply existing. Everything in the world is in a constant chaotic motion, and the air itself is unable to break from an eternal cycle of unstoppable energy. The light feels polluted and almost sticky with dirt. The individual cells of my body become billions of pieces of dust and move in a dense self-contained tornado. I want to close my eyes and pack the surrounding world in an air-tight container. I want to see and hear nothing, I want the darkness to become synonymous with silence.

I appreciate the absence of noise the most when it comes from within myself. My head and body are quiet, my eyes are relaxed, my senses are unobstructed. I can stand still without fidgeting or look at something without needing distraction. The world doesn’t bother me when I am calm and at peace with myself—it is what I cherish and protect the most, this inner silence. At moments like this, I enjoy the sunshine that makes me squint, contextless pieces of conversations that I overhear from people passing by, a fragrant mix of lilacs and fast food teasing my nose for a couple of seconds only to be lost forever. It is quiet, and I am quiet with it.

“The real stuff”, I found out, consisted of the pieces that were politically charged, critically acclaimed, pre-literate, or conceptual (sometimes). In other words, the pieces that went through countless cycles of interpretation and criticism, or invited interpretation by their nature. Under the “banal” umbrella fell most contemporary landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and photography. The distinction is very clear, and the set of genres in each category is diametrically opposite. However, the thing that disturbed me the most was the readiness to praise one and dismiss the other.

Later, I explored my observation with that friend further. Being raised in different countries and having different cultural experiences, we talked about artistic education in public schools, what place do artists and scientists hold in society, and how we transfer our thinking patterns from interpreting art to analyzing our lives and vice versa. At that moment, my suspicion got the confirmation that it needed—we think about life fundamentally differently.

For me the fundamental paradigm of living a life was based on the comfort and security of your microcosm: home. No matter what happened in the world, the most important thing was to live peacefully and have your family nearby. Our values are perfectly reflected in our art: nature, people, animals, and food. We immortalize the things that make us happy, such as intergenerational connections, or the unity of a person and their environment. We reflect on deeply personal turmoils, such as lost love or death. One of my favorite contemporary artists of my region paints the memories of happy childhood: fish, flowers, and sleep. Naturally, the reflection on art follows the same pattern: the feeling always comes before the meaning, though never at the expense of it—we paint our curtains how we saw them in our childhood homes.

For my friend, the experience of life was rooted in something completely opposite. Growing up in a culture that suffers from the dichotomy of superiority and powerlessness, one of the only ways to rise above the masses was (and still is) through intellectualism. The writers and philosophers were considered the elite, and to be regarded as a refined person of delicate artistic mind was the highest praise. Political instability demanded a constant development of new philosophies, and the understanding of self was one of the only aspects of life where a person could have control. Moreover, the ubiquity of censorship didn’t leave much room for expressing true meaning except for encoding it in the color of the curtains. Thus, in an environment, where constant interpretation and self-reflection were an integral part of being a human, the primary function of art was to convey a message and inspire thinking, and both people and art were subject to an invisible hierarchy of opinion.

In my friend’s multigenerational cultural context the meaning of “I think, therefore I am” is not so much about being sentient, but staying perpetually in a mindset of interpretation, analysis, and incessant reflection. With this new definition of homo sapiens, all other people who are not concerned with continuous philosophical thinking, become people of lower grade—too ignorant and preoccupied with the material to contemplate the matters of “real importance”.

Reflecting on our different backgrounds, I am wondering if over-intellectualization is cultural and generational or acquired and trendy. Is this perpetual attempt to find a deeper reason for something a byproduct of a sociological environment or just a new canon of thinking popularized by critics and philosophers? No matter the nature of this elitist framework, it acts as an artificial divider between people and is harmful to both society and art. To me—an outsider—this mindset seems more like a curse, than a blessing. Despite opening some possibilities for critical comprehension, it can act as a hindrance to a simpler and more sensuous perception of art. In that sense, to quote Susan Sontag, “interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art”, and by overanalyzing something, whether it is required or not, we exact revenge not only upon art, but upon ourselves, subconsciously robbing ourselves of simplicity and peace.

On the other hand, I believe that avoiding the intellectualization of a work of art completely is impossible. Despite every attempt to leave the art to just be and enjoy it for what it is, it is in our human nature to interpret and make (or make up) abstract connections. Even on a more primal plane of human consciousness, we are master pattern seekers by nature’s design, and we never lose a chance to see something where it might or might not be. Even without intellectualizing something deliberately, we interpret the tiniest gaps in information—an emotional expression of a face recognized in a wallpaper pattern, an imaginary intention in the behavior of a pet, or our own experiences and prejudices projected onto the protagonist’s actions in a movie. If the interpretation in its essence is just an effort to make sense of the world, is it reasonable to call for avoiding it completely?

Take, for instance, The Dog by Francisco Goya. How far can we go in intellectualizing it? It is a drowning dog, and the painting screams of despair and loneliness. Personally, I feel an enormous amount of sorrow whenever I look at it because I empathise with the dog and I imagine how agonizing it must be to face your own death, all alone. I am also thrown back into my own lowest moments, and I project my own experience back onto the work of art.

In reality, the painting might be a reflection of Goya’s madness and fear of death, or his feeling of helplessness before politics and war. The point is, it makes no sense to gatekeep the process of reflecting on art as an elitist exercise in intellectualism. Since all of us engage with art in our own way, the problem never lies in the act of interpretation itself, but in the ranking of the modes of engagement and the arbitrary division into “good” and “bad” thinking.

I believe that not all art can or should be interpreted, although interpretation is not a crime. Moreover, there are layers to interpretation—it is one thing to infer a mood or a preceding set of events, and an entirely different thing to search for the duality and symbolism of details. In all honesty, I might be an underwhelming companion in a museum, since I am much more partial to the imaginative interpretation rather than the logical one. I couldn’t count the number of times when my thoughts on an esteemed piece of art were scoffed at and dismissed as “not deep enough”, and I find the assessment fair, although I must disagree with the denunciation.

I often find myself perplexed with this kind of snobbery in people who are educated and knowledgeable, or perceive themselves as such. It seems like simply enjoying beautiful curtains is not enough, and if you can’t explain why they are not yellow you’re suddenly not that smart. I am a strong opponent of snobbery in all its manifestations, and I detest the intellectual hierarchies that we invent. You don’t have to leave the curtains alone if you don’t want to. But please, leave alone those people who simply enjoy the curtains for what they are.

In my culture tea is huge. We drink tea everywhere and on every occasion. You are finishing a meal? Stay right there, it’s tea time now. You are attending a wedding? You bet it will have a dedicated person filling 500 cups from 5 different kettles. You are invited for a gossip session with the girlies? It’s not called ‘spill the tea’ for nothing. You are sick? Tea! Headache? Tea! Heartbreak? You get the idea.

It is not uncommon to sit down for a cup of tea more than several times a day. It is usually accompanied by a variety of sweets – chocolate, jam, dried fruit, cake. At a typical grocery store you will find a dedicated “tea-time” aisle, and it will be loaded with all imaginable sources of refined sugar. Many people don’t even bother putting it all away in between tea sessions – often the cookie trays are left permanently on the table.

And there are countless specialized tea-houses that are so widespread that people often treat them as co-working spaces, much like coffee houses. You would see people there celebrating birthdays and conducting business meetings all the time.

By now the overall picture should be clear. Where I live, tea is an omnipresent, all-powerful ritual that accompanies people as they fall in love, sign contracts, and commit murders. No wonder many people’s lives quite literally revolve around it.

I remember vividly the moment it first quietly tried to take its place in my life. I was 15 or 16, living with my mother, her husband, and two younger brothers who were around 4 and 2 at the time. My mom was sick and had to stay in the hospital for a day or two. She called me from there and asked me to warm up the dinner and pour the tea for her husband when he got back from work. “He can’t do it himself,” she said then.

At first, I struggled to understand what I had just heard. It was as if the walls of our house shook slightly, and the light flickered in the lamps. And then, for the first time in my life, I realized that men occupied a very different position in society, or at least the seed of the realization was pushed into the smooth soil of my worldview. It took some time for me to comprehend the simple fact that here we were — a young girl who spent her weekends ironing bedsheets and scrubbing the floors, and a man who had lived until the ripe age of 45 without knowing how to make a cup of tea for himself — existing in the same microcosm of one household, side by side.

Later in life, as I started to talk to other women on “grown up” topics and when women became a little bit less afraid to speak up about their experiences, a whole new parallel universe started to emerge from the deep dark pit of prohibition and shame. I learned that marrying into a traditional family, you often give up any autonomy or agency you have. You become a kelin (literally means daughter-in-law) – a servant, and in extreme cases even a slave, to your husband and his family. Your first duty, which comes in the morning after your wedding night (if you’re lucky), or in the evening right after the wedding party, is to serve tea to the whole family – parents, aunties, grandmas, and everyone who comes by to take a look at you. This is called kelin shay (bride’s tea), and is considered one of the most widespread and important wedding rituals. It completes settling into a new household and signals kelin’s transition from a bride to a wife and a servant. From now on you bow to your in-laws before looking them in the eye or speaking.

The rules for serving tea are strict, too. Pour too little, and you are deemed stingy. Pour too much, and you show your disrespect by allowing for an opportunity to get burnt. Don’t let the cup stay empty for long, too. The color should be perfect: deep amber red for the black tea, soft caramel for tea with milk. The kettle can’t go any colder than boiling hot. And the order of pouring is crucial: first comes milk, then tea, then water. From now on it is your job to serve tea to everyone, and it happens every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day. You will be expected to remember how each and every one of your 100 closest relatives likes their tea. You will be ridiculed and mocked for how weak or plain your tea is. Nobody else will ever do this job, it is your responsibility and duty forever. Or at least until your son marries and brings home a new kelin.

Besides serving tea, kelin bears countless other housekeeping and childbearing responsibilities. Many are never allowed to be employed. Many are completely financially dependent on their in-laws and have to beg for allowance. Many are forbidden to visit their relatives. In many cases kelin’s own parents would not permit her to come back home if she is divorced, even if she is abused or faces an attempted murder.

To anyone outside this culture, this looks exactly like what it is. Like countless other injustices that we encounter in our lives on a daily basis, the reason behind it is simple – patriarchy.

But why do young women still get married and doom their lives to the endless servitude? Some are coerced by relatives (quite literally). Some are kidnapped (also, very literally) and are deemed “damaged goods”. Others simply don’t know any other way to live.

You would expect that having to live through such a dehumanizing experience would result in some rioting action. But in reality, it is immensely difficult to put your foot down and stand up for yourself if no one else is standing by your side. So why don’t older women step up and break this cycle of humiliation? Because despite being deeply hurt by the same treatment, not every woman is in the position to learn how to cope with it other than accepting it as a part of your life and the natural order of things.

My mom, being in many ways a modern and sensible woman, still couldn’t shake off the remnants of patriarchal expectations instilled in her by society and personal experience. When she first got married in the early nineties, she was absolutely ground down by her in-laws to the point where she had no other choice but to flee and later marry my father. She never forgave her first mother-in-law for how she was treated, and harboured the resentment for many years. My mother got the taste of traditional servitude and tried to prevent me from being taken advantage of by making sure I was educated and could freely choose what to do with my life. Still, she always stayed a prisoner to the traditional societal norms. When I tried to tell her how much the times have changed, she always replied with “They haven’t changed that much”. She tried to teach me how to be a good kelin, too. When she got the impression that I enjoyed too much freedom in my life (I was in my late twenties, mind you), she tried to manipulate me into serving her side of the family as they gathered for celebrations. I helped with preparation and cooking out of a sense of obligation and pity, but refused to serve at the table. She was furious. When I was about to get married, she told me to strictly comply with the demands of the in-laws. “If they tell you to cover your hair with a headscarf, don’t rebel against it”, she said. Play by the rules, was the message.

To be fair, my husband’s family never tried to make me comply with any traditional rituals. I have my husband to thank for that – he respected my unshakeable principles from the very beginning, and never allowed anyone to put me in a situation where I would be even slightly uncomfortable. In our family of two, he is the one serving tea. Without a question asked, he simply took over this responsibility with grace and every time we gathered with his relatives, he made sure I was taken care of and treated not as a kelin, but as an equal. With his support, I was able to silently and nonconfrontationally put my foot down and conduct my act of micro-feminism. Even at home, in a peaceful and intimate setting shielded from prying eyes and unsolicited opinions, I am still not expected to serve. I never heard so much as a suggestion to do anything around the house because it was my duty, for which I am endlessly grateful, and for which I have enormous respect for my husband

With that being said, I can happily say that I have some exceptions to my rule. I enjoy serving tea to my girlfriends when we hang out, because I love them very much. I serve tea to my mom when it’s just the two of us – it allows me to demonstrate my respect. Sometimes I offer tea to my husband as a sign of affection and appreciation. I am in a privileged position to serve the people I deeply care about because I am free from serving them out of obligation.

It never ceases to amaze me how such a tiny thing as tea can be so influential, impactful, and nuanced. It is a measure of freedom and the reflection of society. It can be intimate and performative. How we treat it can be either conformist or rebellious. It is most certainly political, because to decide how you feel about serving tea is to decide where you stand.