Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Twelve – Reaching Maloola.
Damascus is full of beautiful faces… many of them, without the head wears that are ubiquitous in Cairo. Damascene girls are not only fairer compared to those in Cairo… they are slimmer, more attuned to the Western fashion sense and are more graceful, in comparison.
Later in the night, I met another acquaintance of mine, named Karthikeyan… Finding his house was a nice experience… I was helped by an old woman to be dropped near to Karthikeyan's house… then by an old man, who strived to find the exact place of his residence for more than an hour (During the house hunting, I met a Sri Lankan girl… though she could not be of much help, but we both felt nice to see each other… and felt as if we were from the same country; A lot of Sri Lankan girls work as housemaids in Lebanon and Syria)
Later in the night, I met another acquaintance of mine, named Karthikeyan… Finding his house was a nice experience… I was helped by an old woman to be dropped near to Karthikeyan's house… then by an old man, who strived to find the exact place of his residence for more than an hour (During the house hunting, I met a Sri Lankan girl… though she could not be of much help, but we both felt nice to see each other… and felt as if we were from the same country; A lot of Sri Lankan girls work as housemaids in Lebanon and Syria)
Karthikeyan played a wonderful host, his wife prepared a tasty South Indian dinner for me… and only when I ate a small portion of it… did I realize, how very much I was craving for a morsel of Indian food…. For last few days, I was surviving on Felafel.
After the dinner, Karthikeyan dropped me back to Devesh's place…. I tried sleeping but could not and kept on wondering what to do next as I had no plans in place for the next day… May be another day of site-seeing in Damascus, or perhaps pushing to Bosra or Amman… I was just weighing my options, when I stumbled upon a piece of paper… which mentioned a place called Maloola…
Maloola is a very special place… being the only place in the world where Aramaic is still spoken in daily life… Aramaic is a very special language… it was the language of Jesus; Contrary to the popular belief that it was either Greek or Latin. In recent years, only the movie "Passion of the Christ" referred to the real language of Christ. Otherwise all the imagery of Christ are either in Greek or in Latin.
Maloola is an important centre for Syrian Orthodox Church. Maloola and another nearby town of Sadanaya house the entire top clergy of Syrian Orthodoxy… the patriarch of Syrian Orthodox Church is based in Sadanaya. (An interesting piece of information- more than half of the adherents of this church are actually in India, in the state of Kerala, therefore an Indian coming to either Maloola or Sadanaya is not surprising for these places)
In Maloola one can see a beautiful Church of Byzantine origin and a beautiful monastery(Byzantine was a great Greco-Roman empire established in 300 AD and dominated the entire region for almost 1000 years. In its heydays it extended from Europe to North Africa to Turkey and Levant…- much of what Christianity is today, especially the Roman Catholicism is due to this empire and its greatest ruler the Constantine- from whose name the earlier name of Istanbul i.e.Constantinople derived itself). The atmosphere in Maloola is very relaxed and friendly.
I started for Maloola, very early in the morning… with a plan to cover both Maloola and Sadanaya in one day… return back and then proceed to either Amman or Bosra.
However as I had said earlier… sometimes staying far off from the tourist jamboree is not a good idea… it took me almost 2 hours to search for the bus stand from where I could fetch bus to Maloola… In these two hours, I must have traveled the entire Damascus city. In a sense… these two hours were not a waste of time, it was a sort of whirlwind tour of the entire city- from the wealthy suburbs to slums… from Spartan areas to the walled city…
Maloola is a very special place… being the only place in the world where Aramaic is still spoken in daily life… Aramaic is a very special language… it was the language of Jesus; Contrary to the popular belief that it was either Greek or Latin. In recent years, only the movie "Passion of the Christ" referred to the real language of Christ. Otherwise all the imagery of Christ are either in Greek or in Latin.
Maloola is an important centre for Syrian Orthodox Church. Maloola and another nearby town of Sadanaya house the entire top clergy of Syrian Orthodoxy… the patriarch of Syrian Orthodox Church is based in Sadanaya. (An interesting piece of information- more than half of the adherents of this church are actually in India, in the state of Kerala, therefore an Indian coming to either Maloola or Sadanaya is not surprising for these places)
In Maloola one can see a beautiful Church of Byzantine origin and a beautiful monastery(Byzantine was a great Greco-Roman empire established in 300 AD and dominated the entire region for almost 1000 years. In its heydays it extended from Europe to North Africa to Turkey and Levant…- much of what Christianity is today, especially the Roman Catholicism is due to this empire and its greatest ruler the Constantine- from whose name the earlier name of Istanbul i.e.Constantinople derived itself). The atmosphere in Maloola is very relaxed and friendly.
I started for Maloola, very early in the morning… with a plan to cover both Maloola and Sadanaya in one day… return back and then proceed to either Amman or Bosra.
However as I had said earlier… sometimes staying far off from the tourist jamboree is not a good idea… it took me almost 2 hours to search for the bus stand from where I could fetch bus to Maloola… In these two hours, I must have traveled the entire Damascus city. In a sense… these two hours were not a waste of time, it was a sort of whirlwind tour of the entire city- from the wealthy suburbs to slums… from Spartan areas to the walled city…
The bus ride to Maloola takes one and a half hour… Maloola is located in the desolate hilly areas… The terrain in Maloola and nearby area is arid, harsh and a far cry from the green areas just 40 kilometers away in Damascus… Seeing Maloola, I was reminded of Wadi Natrun, a Coptic monastery in Egypt. Christians in these predominantly Muslim countries have sought refuge in these harsh areas to sustain and survive from Muslim assault… they cound refuge in the harsh deserts of Egypt, in the arid highlands of Syria and in the unearthly terrains of Cappadocia in Turkey. Making these terrains inhabitable was the key to their survival in hostile political clime.
Today's Maloola is a gentle town… quite like a hill station with gentle slopes. A lot of local Christian families come to Maloola to visit the church and the monastery… so the church itself is very crowded…
There is a beautiful chapel where I was reintroduced to the Madaba mosaics… a few steps up there is a place, much revered by the Christians… where everybody went only after removing their shoes… I joined them; a priest tied a white thread around my wrist and blessed me.
On the back side of the church is a small but dramatic canyon like place called Tekla Gap… It was used by the residents of the place to escape the wrath of approaching armies. The gap also leads you to the Monastery…. If one comes to Maloola, walking in the Tekla Gap is a must… the temperature of the Gap is at least 5-10 degree centigrade less than the ambience around.
I saw the monastery and wondered in I can proceed to Sadanaya from this place. And entered a shop, where an old man was speaking to his beautiful daughter in a language that was certainly not Arabic. I checked… he was speaking in Aramaic, the language of Christ.
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