Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Two- First brush with Syria

Day before yesterday, I was partying with a few friends of mine… it was hosted by a friend of mine, named Atal… an Indian, who presently works for a US based consultant and is working on a project with some Egyptian organization. Upon hearing my travel experiences, he jokingly remarked that in Egypt, if a person has a beautiful (and dutiful) wife… people refer him as having a Syrian wife. In retrospect, I found some truth in it.

Syrian women in the streets of Aleppo are much fairer, slimmer and attractive than their Egyptian counterpart…. However they were all decked up with a headwear and a long gown like suit… Initially, I thought that this, perhaps, is an indication of a conservative society… but as it unfolded later, it was not the true picture.

My taxi driver from the Airport to the hotel was one Moinuddin… he was a young lad, very talkative and as soon as he found out that I am able to speak and understand Arabic… he just went on and on… he introduced me to Aleppo and told me about the places to be visited and what to buy as souvenirs… and unlike what taxi drivers at other places would do, he hardly ever offered me to take to all these places… instead at one point of time he said that Aleppo has an excellent network of Servees (shared minibuses) and I should use them to save time and money.

I asked him if I can visit the famous Aleppo citadel in the night, today… he answered in negative and said that today night the citadel is having a music concert (a ticket of which is USD 50) and that singers from Lebanon are coming for the same… I asked if Haifa Wahbi will be coming for the concert… his eyes twinkled for a moment… and then he let out a cold sigh and said – No, she is banned in Syria. I told him about the incident when I saw Haifa at Cairo airport, once… and thereafter he subjected me with a barrage of questions… what she looks like, what was she wearing…

Aleppo is the second largest city of Syria, but it doesn’t take its ranking too seriously… However, touristically speaking it has a lot to offer… It has a wonderful old town (with a lot of old mosques and churches, especially that of Armenian and Greek denomination), a wonderful citadel (second largest in Syria, just after the magical Crac), a marvelous vaulted souq (typically Levantine…with narrow alleys and by-alleys and a covering canopy over the entire souq), a huge mosque (though unlike the Umayyad mosque of Damascus, the entry, it seems, is regulated for non-Muslims)…. And the beautiful excursions from Aleppo… leading to places like Saint Simeon, Apamea, and an array of Dead cities…

I first heard about Aleppo- when I was in my teens, while reading Macbeth and Othello (both of them incidentally are my favourites)… at that time it was just a name, for me… and today I was standing in the confines of this great city… which alongside Damascus and Sana'a is often referred as the oldest continuously inhabited city of the world. It is said that when Rome was built is 8^th Century BC, Aleppo had already seen more than 2000 years of existence. It was one of the most important stops along the Silk Route. And today it is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in its entirety.

My hotel called Al Jawaher was bang opposite another landmark of the city, called clock tower… and thereafter there was a huge marketplace…Without much to do after checking into the hotel, I casually walked towards the old city… through this marketplace… and to my wonderment the first shop I came across was selling Hindi movie VCDs… and there were people fervently buying them all…. In India, we often treat the "masala" Bollywood movies with a condescend… and yet I have seen them playing a huge role in public diplomacy (I was recently introduced to this term by my friend Raja Karthikeya, studying Diplomacy in Washington… according to Wikipedia- in international relations, the term describes aspects of international diplomacy other than the interactions between national governments.)… I have seen the Bollywood playing a huge role in Egypt, in Algeria, in Syria, in Jordan… and many other places… it makes an image of India… it makes India known to many… The other day I was reading an article comparing soft power of China and India… and how Indian movies are seen distinctly as Indian… whereas the Hong Kong movies are often seen as an extension of the Hollywood.

The old city of Aleppo is magical… this was the first time, I was being introduced to the walled cities of the Middle East, one of its best and most wonderful example being Jerusalem. It has beautiful mosques, churches, Baths, lanes and by lanes, heritage building converted into hotels and restaurants, huge courtyards- where local kids still play as they used to, centuries ago… Somebody rightly remarked that you stay in Aleppo for months together and yet are barely able to scrap the surface of it.

Thereafter, I strolled to the other side of the city towards the Great Mosque and Citadel… I realized that roads of Aleppo are neat and clean and the pavements are free from any encroachments… therefore, strolling in Aleppo is a pleasure… unlike say in most of the cities of India and in Cairo.

The Great mosque was a wonderful site from a distance… however buildings have come up near the place, haphazardly… destroying the commanding position of its grand minaret. It is said that once this Great mosque rivaled the great Umayyad mosque of Damascus, in grandeur and beauty… but thereafter, a series of looting and plundering by Crusaders and others, destroyed its beauty… In the night the entire mosque glowed as an oasis of timelessness in the vastness of ephemeral modernity.

A stone throw away is the famous citadel of Aleppo… there was an atmosphere of festivity surrounding the entire place… due to the music concert that Moinuddin told me about. However, I could sense that even otherwise it is central to the life in Aleppo… the entire area was full of restaurants and cafes… with many of the old buildings having been converted into one… exuding the old worldly charm. The outer wall of the moat that surrounded the citadel was a rendezvous for couples… quite like the Nile corniche in Cairo.

There was something magical in the entire atmosphere; I knew I have come to the right place…….