Hand-woven rugs from the Bukhara region in Uzbekistan cover the large stone walls at Karavan and memorabilia from Babur land—miniature wooden camels, strings of dried figs and silk tapestry in traditional folk prints and colourful golden embroidery— brightens up the interiors. The kitchen at Karavan brings local dishes from Tashkent and Samarkand to Delhi. The Uzbek’s love for music too has been transplanted here—an in-house musician strums his robab, belting out contemporary Tashkent tunes and popular Bollywood numbers from the Seventies.

“Raj Kapoor is extremely popular in Uzbekistan. Generations of Uzbeks, Tajiks and Kazaks have grown up humming songs from his films,” says owner Zulaykha Umarova who settled in India almost a decade ago “after tying the knot with an Indian”. But it took her several years and a bit of coaxing from her husband to venture out of her CR Park home and set up a restaurant. The idea came on a holiday. “During a holiday in Dubai, I stumbled upon an Uzbek restaurant. For a change, I was not in the kitchen making a traditional meal for myself. I just sat back and enjoyed the food and the ambience that was reminiscent of my homeland. Moreover, the restaurant was doing quite well with the locals. It made good business sense, to attempt selling our food in Delhi,” she adds.

In the following months, Umarova roped in musician-singer Aybek Matyusupov, who worked at the Indian Embassy in Tashkent, and made Kabiljon Umirzakov quit his kitchen chores at a café in Tashkent, and packed them off to India. “For me, it’s a great opportunity. We love Bollywood music and I am trying my luck at singing here,” says Matyusupov, whose Hindi is almost as good as his mother tongue.

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