I’m
now going through Galata, a bridge over the Golden Horn, an urban
creek, or branch of sea, here debouching on the Bosphorus, on my
right side. And so, as I go by, I watch the groups of fishermen
leaning over the bridge railings, this is, men casting their hooks
down there, just on the side of recreational boats constantly passing
by, and then, while they watch their lines, they drink tea, just
prepared on the portable cockles installed on their sides, and as it
goes, I reach the east-end of this bridge, and I get to know that
here is Karaköy,
this meaning “the dark neighborhood”, someone informs me, and
then, after the passage of the tram, I can already hear some kind of
street singing going on, this is, down there, on the space between
the access to the bridge itself and the Kadikoy iskele(quay), I see a
young girl with a portable microphone in her hands, actually singing
some kind of melancholic romantic songs to the passersby, plus some
seated here, their backs turned to me, on a natural balcony placed
between the tram line and the access to the quay, and then, as she
goes on, in a very lame kind of tone, some stray dogs are now
arriving from the sides, circulating around her, and as this happen,
I also pay attention to the building on the back of this scene, some
kind of art-nouveau building, crumbling, and, its facade is actually
covered with a semi-rotten awning with some deformed mobile-phone
publicity whatsoever… and, then, as I look the people on the small
amphitheater, the ones with their backs turned to me, a drunk guy
approaches, down there, now staggering in front of the singer, but
soon we understand that, he is not coming for her, he is coming to
the dogs on the side, and so, there he goes now, feeding them with
crumbs, or something the likes, and then, he is even holding one of
this creatures against his chest… and, as he does that, the singer
keeps with her show, opening more her arms now, this is, singing with
even more depth and lament on the voice, and in the meanwhile, the
people on the balcony on her front begins to whoop and to grunt, this
is, I do not know if in a way to support her or in a way to
disapprove, but, whatsoever, I myself, I like what she’s doing, it
feels real, even if lugubrious, it feels very real… and then, there
I go, already leaving, following the tram line, this is, advancing
along Kemeraltı avenue, I get to know. I pass
the port of Kabataş, the Dolmabahçe Palace, and I go under he First
Bosphorus Bridge,
officially known as the 15
July Martyrs Bridge
(onbeş
Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü),
one of the three bridges over the Bosphorus connecting Europe and
Asia, and I keep walking by the water, going through the Beşiktaş
neighborhood, and after a while I reach the Naile Sultan garden, and
inside this garden I find a guy leaning against some kind of tree, an
ottoman era Mansion house on his back, and some lame dogs around.
This is, this guy is the gardener, and he tells me that Naile
was the daughter of a pasha, and this groove, which is still private
property today, is not open to the public, and so, I shouldn’t be
here, anyway, after a while he is already presenting me to some
mahalebs, some buckthorns, and some turk magnolias. And then further,
I reach Bebek, a middle class neighborhood,
and here, by the water, I get in a conversation with a girl sitting
on a bench, she is looking at an open book on her lap and at the same
time to the sea on her front, and so, I decide to ask what is that
book about, and she instantly says that “the
protagonist is an Istanbul lawyer named Galip, he finds one day that
his wife Rüya ("dream"), has mysteriously left him with
very little explanation, and so, he wanders around the city looking
for his clues to her whereabouts. “Hum,
I see…” I say, “but is it a dark story?” I ask and then she
tries to explain, but I can't get it because a couple of tourists are
coming on our side to ask things. And then I go under the Second
Bosphorus
Bridge,
the
“Fatih Sultan Mehmet” Bridge.
Then, I’m making my way to Kireçburnu bay, which is already part
of the Sarıyer neighborhood, the last neighborhood of Istanbul
before reaching the black sea. And so, there I go, wandering through
this green area called “Milli Parklar Kuş Gözlem Kulesi - Bird
Observation Tower hill”, I go down, I go up, I lose myself and
finally I reach Garipçe (strange makers)... a small isolated village
at the mouth of the Bosphorus. I wonder about the ruins of the old
fortifications by the black sea, I go down the cliffs by the water
and I make my prayers. Then, I come back to the village being
followed by black eyed dogs. And now, I’m sitting on the esplanade
of an old cafe with a view over the port, staring at the men moving
the containers, down there… while getting drunk. And then, it’s
late, it’s night, so the bar is about to close, but the barman, a
skinny man with a thin mustache, aware that I’m the last client
here, decides to invite me to his house, and so, there we go…
together we drink rakia all night long while speaking about women,
and, at the same time, playing some kind of table games, mixing the
pieces, recreating the rules, changing the symbols, exchanging the
amounts… This is, in the morning I manage to cross the mouth of the
Bosphorus on a small fishing boat and once I get in Poyraz, I
instantly get a ride with a gas delivery man, a funny guy that will
drop me close to the Kuzey Marmara Otoyolu, a big motorway going
east. And so, as I walk on it, I get a ride with another car, the
driver introduces himself as Mustafa, a retired police officer now
running a chicken farm. And so, there we go, talking about eggs,
chicken, cocks, turkeys and the reason why Turkey is called Turkey.
And thus, about one thousand kilometers later we reach the Sümela
Monastery, in the Altindere Valley and I don’t know what exactly
happens there, but next morning I’m waking up in a posh room with a
disconcerting hangover. There are carpets on the walls with
geometric-abstract motives and a huge golden candelabrum is actually
hanging from the roof, right over my head, moving slowly… and so,
instantly, I jump out of the bed and there I go, running out of the
room, and into the toilet I go, vomiting. But, there is no materia
coming out, just that disgusting yellowish fluid. And then, I get
back to the living room, still cleaning up my mouth and blinking like
someone that has just awakened for the new world. This is, there is
too much light entering this rich furnished room enclosed with
geometric labyrinth patterns, and on my front is a man with a thin
mustache and a knot on the collar of his white sleeve shirt, and he
talks without looking at me, looking to the walls, in a soften
polished tone, as if he got honey under his tongue. “I’m Haji
Bektaş Veli, the Sultan of Hearts, the Derwish of the Dervishes, the
pilgrim saint, a descendant of the seventh Shia Imam Musa Kazim, also
called Abul Hasan, Abu Abd Allah, Abu Ibrahim, al-Kadhim, the one who
controls his anger… I have rained with the rain and I have grown as
grass… I was Bektash, who came from Khurasané'' he says, and then
I’m feeling sick again, so I'm running back to the toilet, and once
there, while looking at my paleness in the mirror, I still can hear
that pastiche voice from the man in the living room, this time even
more groovy “Seek and find… coz, to search and investigate is an
open exam... but, be in control of your hands, tongue and loins...
and whatever you do, do it for the Truth... coz there exists in you a
“there is” to replace every “there isn't.”... and If the path
appears dark, know that the veil is in your own eyes... all blessings
upon the one who overlooks another's shortcomings.... all blessings
upon the one who makes a secret of secrets... do not hurt others,
even if you are hurt... one hour of meditation is better than seventy
years of piety... and never desire fame, fame is disaster...” and
then, I’m coming back the main road by the black sea, and in the
meanwhile, I get a ride in a old fashion Kuba motorcycle that take me
to Trabzon, and then another ride in a small car, a Mazda, being
driven by a young Greek/Turkish couple, and so, we cross the
Tea-Growing region of Rize, and then we reach the border with
Georgia. And so, already inside the Georgian territory, I get another
ride with a camion driver, a turk man that tells me a lot of bullshit
about turkish politics and then I get another ride in a car with the
driving wheel on the right side, and the driver, a Georgian middle
age pop-eyed man, explain me that Georgia is a major re-export hub
for cars. Dealers purchase second-hand cars from Japan and Europe,
ship them to Georgia and then sell them here or transport them to
neighboring countries, “this is my job”, he says with that harsh
tone proper from the Georgian language. And so, once in Tbilisi, I
get the sensation that I'm in some northern city of Greece, I see
Georgians as shy Greeks with a touch of the Russian thing, that’s
my first impression of these people. And as it goes, I end up in the
sulphuric baths, in Abanotubani, a hill on the suburbs of the city,
where according to a legend, the falcon of the King Vakhtang
Gorgasali have fallen, this, leading to the discovery of the hot
springs and, subsequently, contributing to the founding of a new
capital. This area, “not to be mistaken with the Iberian peninsula
of Portugal and Spain, coz, in the Greco-Roman geography, Iberia was
an exonym for the Georgian kingdom of Kartli, known after its core
province, which during Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
was a significant monarchy in the Caucasus…” someone
here tells me.
And so, at the top of the hill, on
the back of Sulphuric baths, I manage to find some young Russians
actually making some kind of picnic, and well,
straight away I would
join
them in their meeting, this
is, we
would actually
talk
about European-Russian politics while actually
smoking
that grass embedded with sulfur. And eventually, in
the meanwhile, someone
would even ask me if I want some chacha, this is, “a kind of
Georgian vodka,” they
say, and “Yes”
I say, thus,
in the meanwhile, as
we
all drank it, down the mountain we would
go
until reaching the Kura River, and
then we would even continue walking by this
river, eventually reaching
the Rustavi
Forest, where
we would actually lose each others, and so,
after being
asleep
on the
vicinity of this forest
during some hours, I
would see myself aboard
some sort of mini-bus packed with some villagers actually putting
water on my head while giving me some kind of curated cheese they
would
call
Guda.
This
is,
some of them, mainly the ladies, would even
smile
to me along the way, but the man, punchy, would give me despicable
looks I wouldn’t understand. Anyway, once we reached Ruisbolo, the
last village before the border with Azerbaijan, I would go across the
border walking to actually be very welcomed by the Azerbaijan customs
personal,
this is, one of them would even put me in contact with a
friend that accordingly, would
give
me a ride in his old Lada until the Ganja
city,
and
so, many teas and
ganja conversation after,
I would eventually reach Baku,
the capital and largest
city in
this country,
as well
the largest city by
the Caspian
Sea and
in the Caucasus region,
I
got to know. Said
and done, in the morning, I would eventually board
some crappy ship made of rotten cans, and there I
would
go across the oily
Caspian sea. This
is, we would moor
somewhere on the Türkmenbashi Gulf, the west coast of Turkmenistan,
Awaza, that before was part of the Khanate of Khiva, now a deserted
tourist zone commissioned by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow who
sought to imitate Dubai's development boom and Las Vegas pedantry.
And so, I wander around this area with pyramidal hotels in the middle
of the nothingness and then, as I enter one of them, I speak with the
receptionist, a bored man named Pürli.
He tells
about
the great wall Iran is building on its border with Afghanistan and
Iran, its consequences and policies, and so, I decide to avoid Iran,
I
advance by the Amu Darya river that makes the border between
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and then some new-age
talibans take me to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. And so, once
in Islamabad, I go to visit the Heritage Museum or the National
Institute of Folk & Traditional Heritage, a museum that has also
a Sufi
section,
and here there are pictures of musicians standing in performing
postures, this is, the sufi saints Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Shah Abdul
Latif Bhittai and Sachal Sarmast, among others. And when I ask about
these saints, they tell me that “Lal was a contemporary of Rumi, he
traveled around the Muslim world and settled in Sehwan, close to the
Manchar lake, where he performed his miracles… and Shah was a poet
and musician that made his instruments talk… and then there was
Sachal Sarmast, that wrote poetry in seven languages, and they tell
me about his famous book Shah
Jo Risalo,
that is, "The Message of the Truthful", a book with thirty
Surs, accordingly named: Kalyaan; Yaman Kalyaan;
Khanbhaat;
Suri Raag;
Samundi;
Sohni;
Sassui
Aburi;
Maazuri;
Desi;
Kohyari;
Husain;
Lilan
Chanesar;
Momal
Rano; Marui;
Kaamod;
Ghattu;
Sorath; Kedaro; Sarang; Asaa;
Rippa;
Khahori;
Barwo
sindhi;
Ramkali;
Kapati;
Purab;
Karayal;
Pirbhati;
Dahar;
Bilawal
and Sur Kamod. And plus, I got to know tha these Surs
contain Bayts,
which Shah Latif used to sing in a state of ecstasy, were concerning
the life-stories of his heroines, Suhni, Sassui, Lila, Mumal, Marui,
Nuri and Sorath, which the Sufi Poet in the state of "Wajd"
or ecstasy, used as allegories to express their mystical experiences.
Then I’m aboard a dugout flowing along the Tawi River that crosses
Pakistan into India, and so, I’m actually being taken by a pair of
boatmen who transport exotic goods between the two countries. In
the meantime we reached the suburbs of Jammu city, and from far away,
right on top of a hill, I can already spot a huge pink building with
some black spots, and so, as I approach it, the upper part of the
building get more and more evident, and then, what I thought to be
big windows, are actually holes, big holes on the pinkish walls and a
burned kind of roof. And, as I ask around, I get to know that
actually, this building in ruins is called Mubarak Mandi. And the
word Mubarak is not strange to me, I already knew that “Barak''
comes from Arab and means something like “blessed”, and so, the I
ask in the streets around about the meaning of Mandi”. and someone
tells me that “Mandi” actually means “rice”, others tell me
that it means “dew”, and then someone tells me that it actually
means “market”. So, yes sir, now I see, this crumbling pink
building must have been some kind of royal market, or rather a palace
with a Victorian touch, certainly hosting a market with worldwide
products brought from east and the west. Then, as I approach the
city, someone tells me that this building had been the royal
residence of the last Rajah of Jammu and Kashmir. And plus, this old
man also helps me to find where the City
Chowk is,
this is, the city market. And so, here I’m, now going through some
alleys with a series of tiny shops with their merchandise sprouting
out of the front windows, that is, barbershops, fruit shops, colorful
plastic stores, clothes shops and steaming foods, etc. And then, I
get into small conversations with the customers queuing up in front
of a street vendor stirring a yellow paste inside a large silver pot.
This is Halva, a dessert that I already knew from other countries in
the Middle East, but here it has a more yellowish tone, and they add
roasted sesame seeds and pistachios to it, and almond and vanilla.
“The halwa is cooked in pure ghee”, clarified a man with gold
teeth, approaching us; and then the clarification continues like this
“The ghee is made with buffalo milk, not cow's milk”, he says
turning to some kind of tourists on his front and then to me, and I
look away. That is, without wanting to know, I find out that these
tourists are actually on their way to the Vaisho Devi, an important
Hindu temple located about fifty kilometers to the north, in the
Trikuta mountains, these mountains being considered the second home
of the goddess Durga. Result: I drink mint tea, eat roasted onions
with caramel and soon I'm at the bus station buying a bus ticket to
Srinagar. And so, as I get in the bus, I find a book by a certain
Mushtaq Ahmad Mushtaq, and as the bus take-off, I begin to read a
snippet from this book, actually a snippet from a short story
entitled “The Scar”, and it goes more and less like this: “...for
the third time Piari climbed the ladder to clean the floor from the
porch, meanwhile Saeb left his room to come here and sit for a while.
Piari was irritated, but even though she threw him an angry look, she
didn't say a word and went back inside. It was late afternoon and the
compound was covered in evening shadows, and only the top of the
bush, a pomegranate tree, was bright with the setting sun, the lower
part was devoid of foliage and flowers. And many times Piari insisted
with her husband to remove that thing looking more like a battered
scar, but Lala Saeb refused. Piari used to have discussions with Lala
Saeb about almost every petty issue, like cutting the withered bush,
even though they lived in the same house… Lala Saeb had been
retired for over twelve years. That is, initially, after his
retirement, he used to leave almost on time from the office. And, in
addition to taking care of many household chores, he would go to the
library to read the newspapers, or gossip in the barber shop, paying
thoughtful visits to all his relatives, as well, or even help his
wife in the kitchen… But then, when his wife died, he contracted
the "sugar disease" and eventually would become weak to the
point it was impossible for him to move. Still, he couldn't get the
state to give him a pension. So, he would usually either stay in his
room relaxing, or sit quietly on any other side of the house. And
occasionally, he would turn on the TV to entertain himself a little,
or else he would sit on the porch and watch this withered bush, the
branches of the pomegranate tree. So, under the setting sun, Lala
Saeb had the momentary illusion that the withered bush would sprout
again and become a bright flame with its red flowers. And it reminded
him of a scene from another time, when a pomegranate orchard had
blossomed around his old mud house. There was even a house party
because, finally, a boy was born after three daughters. And before
the baby was old enough to go to school, he used to play and play
with his sisters and cousins by the same pomegranate grove. They
called him Shahzadah, the prince. Lala Saeb and his wife felt that
they had achieved all the joys of life; they were neither deficient
in anything nor helpless in any way. Shahzadah continued to grow, and
Lala Saeb's brothers decided to build their new houses where the old
one was, starting by cutting down the pomegranate bushes. Saba Lala
had been the first to build her separate house, then Ghulam Rasool,
and finally Lala Saeb, who spent whatever he saved, after marrying
off his daughter, on building his present home so that Shahzadah
would never feel poor compared to his cousins. And all the remaining
pomegranate bushes were cut down when the house was built; and the
current bush, withered in a corner of the compound, was saved by Lala
Saeb's wife as a keepsake. The bush had been blooming every year,
even though it was close to the cement fence, yet strangely enough,
it began to wither shortly after his wife's departure for the
heavenly abode. Lala Saeb's eyes were now fixed on the withered
branches of the pomegranate tree, and he was lost in his ruminations.
Suddenly, Piari turned on the TV inside the house; it was the evening
news bulletin. Lala Saeb was startled when he heard clearly:
"Nomination orders have been given to two hundred youths today
for compassionate reasons." So the government finally started to
do something, he thought, and “God willing our Shahzadah will also
settle down in life. Each day of my old age is as heavy as a
mountain, and I would rather leave for the other world right now than
stand all this… but what will happen to him? He, that just opened a
store, but was not successful in it. I would like him to get a job
soon, so that I could take my last breath in peace.” With these
thoughts he cast a glance again at the withered bush, and twilight
was almost done, so the cluster of dried pomegranate leaves really
did look incongruous with the green grass and the beautiful variety
of flower beds. Then, letting out a deep sigh, he pushed himself up
against the wall and walked into his room. Shortly after, Piari came
in to ask if he had run out of medicine, but Lala Saeb said nothing
about the medicine, instead he asked if she had heard the news. “The
government is said to have issued appointment orders for two hundred
youths'' she said with a frown. “Then why don't you tell Shahzadah
Lal to get some money and start his life. It would make my death
easier”, said Lala Saeb albeit shyly. “What nonsense are you
saying? Those two hundred jobs were distributed to those people who
lost a relative during the riots” Piari says, and giving a tug, she
continued: "Altamash, do you know that friend of Shahzad's, who
also got a job contract, his father, was killed in a shootout while
he was on his way to the bank to collect his pension. Not only did he
get a job, but also got an ex-gratia compensation of one hundred
thousand rupees" she said, and as she said it, she gave another
shudder and left the room. Lala Saeb, having heard what Piari said,
was stunned, his whole body now drenched in cold sweat, and so, he
advanced to the semi-dry pomegranate tree, and embraced its trunk
with all its force”.
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