Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Three – The magic starts

Do you know what is the most liberating experience…?

Close your eyes… imagine yourself transported to an alien land… where you know nobody and nobody knows you… imagine a small road somewhere over there… hugged by two rows of pine and alder trees… and imagine yourself walking down the road…without a soul and without a botheration… that is the most liberating experience.

Saint Simeon (Qalaat Samaan) is about 35 kms away from the hurly burly of Aleppo… a quaint little ruin of an erstwhile grand monastery… it is one of the most beautiful monastery one may come across… but sadly, as everybody told me, there was no public transport to that place…

Saint Simeon was an ordinary shepherd, whose life was changed by a revelation… and thus followed an ascetic life... that catapulted this ordinary soul into a saint… A huge Byzantine church was built after him… at a place, where he lived most of his life…

My hotel owner told me that though there is no public transport to Saint Simeon… but I may get a minibus till a place called Dar Al Ezza… some 10 kms ahead of Saint Simeon… and thereafter I can take a taxi or just walk down….

However… pronouncing either Qalaat Samaan or Dar Al Ezza was a difficult thing for me… most of the people on the road could hardly understand me (believe me pronouncing them, for a non-native, can be really difficult)… however, they kept referring me to a person, whom they thought was a veteran of English... till they collectively solved my problem.

Finally I was able to find a shared minibus to Dar Al Ezza….It was a half an hour ride… the bus meandered through the city of Aleppo… and then leaving it behind ushered into the countryside… and whatever image the word 'Arab' creates (that of a desert)… this country side was lush green… villages were small with cottage like houses amidst vast expanses of greens… as if recreating all the images of European countryside that I have seen, courtesy the Yashraj films (an Indian film producer who has created a genre of his own… socially relevant escapist romances, vastly popular among urban middle class)…

It was a Friday and therefore the entire village of Dar Al Ezza had come to stand still… hardly a few souls around… somebody told me that sometimes a few minibuses run on the route to Saint Simeon… and can drop me very close to it… I intently waited for them… for more that half an hour…

Are you from India…? A very fair gentleman also waiting for, perhaps a bus, asked me… I am used to this question… somehow, everybody tends to guess that we Indians are "Indians", perhaps we have some special features… or perhaps our mannerisms are all too distinguishable… I nodded… he said that he was waiting for his truck that is coming from Aleppo and would take him to his village located on a nearby foothill and I can join him till Saint Simeon…

On the way, we chatted for a while… he was an ethnic Kurd… and has been living in Syria since birth…

I was always under the impression that ethnic Kurd are mostly in Iraq, Iran and Turkey… but he told me that there is a sizeable population in Syria and Azerbaijan, too. He casually asked me about my religion… I told him that I was Hindusi (that’s how Arabs know the religion of Hinduism)… I counter-questioned him about his religion, with an understanding that most of the ethnic Kurds are Muslims with a minority of Christians…. He, instead, dropped a bombshell… he said that he was a Zoroastrian… (Now weren’t we always told that Zoroastrian are only in India…and have perished in their native homeland)… he said that for ages, the Zoroastrian Kurds have been surviving by hiding their religion… masquerading as either Christian or Muslims… as per the need of the hour. He knew that many of his brethren are living in India and doing very well in life… and that’s why he has a natural fondness for India…

I was taken aback, I asked him as to how many Zoroastrians survive among the Kurds…he smiled and said, more than you will ever expect, especially in Syria and Iraq…. he bid me a good bye, at a junction and pointed out at a road that led to Saint Simeon....It is very difficult to be a citizen without a nation…

Thus I came to the road that gave me the most liberating experience.

Saint Simeon is beautiful… it makes you imagine a lot of things about the life of yesteryears… and yet the vantages from the place are even more beautiful…. I just sat down for hours together at one of the vantages and enjoyed the scenery around… small villages amongst the vastness of green… small hillocks at the horizon… if I would have blinked, I would have definitely wondered as to where am I… in Syria…or in the foothills of Shivalik… but I did not blink, I did not lose even a moment of that scenery. But for indicators… do not miss the Basilica of Saint Simeon… it is very much intact… and you don’t need to imagine a lot to create the magic of yesteryears…

The guard of the place indicated me a place, far off… where Saint Simeon used to live and pray before he shifted to this place… from a distance it seemed beautiful… and even though he warned me that the dirt track that seems to lead you to the place, is full of dead ends… nevertheless, the place beckoned me and I just rushed towards the place…

A determined person, like water, always find a way to move… I reached the place after half an hour long trek… the ruins were beautiful and haunting at the same time… not a soul nearby ... while wandering near the broken walls of one of the ruins… I saw something very interesting… an engraving of INVERTED SWASTIK… (Was it some kind of religious symbol from yesteryears, I wondered…In fact a swastik symbol was used in many christian monuments, as a hooked version of cross in the Gothic era)… a little later, I realized that I am feeling thirsty and that I have left my water bottle atop the Saint Simeon… without any alternative, I strayed into a nearby village… and upon seeing a group of children, I asked for some water… the kids not only brought me water… but ushered me into their house and offered me some figs… and tea…sitting with them and enjoying the fresh figs was a unique cultural experience…. It numbed me… humbled me, and for me that is the most important lesson one can learn while traveling… humility… being rich or successful does not mean being better….