Reminiscence from Persia- Part One: Qom-Mashhad bus!

I caught the bus in a funny manner… I was supposed to catch a 5 pm bus and arrived at Qom Bus station at 4 pm… I showed my ticket to one of the bus terminal employees… who boarded me on a 4 pm bus… I protested… My bus is due at 5pm… everybody- from the bus driver to the conductor- smiled… and said that it didn’t matter… and that 4 pm bus would ensure that I reach Mashhad early morning.

I got a seat in the rear end… beside a chubby gentleman… who turned out to be an Iraqi on Ziyarat (pilgrimage)… I was surrounded mostly by Iraqis and Hazaras… all on Ziyarat…

Qom and Mashhad are the two most sacred Shiite sights in Iran… Qom for its Fatimah al-Masumeh mosque and Jamkaran Mosque… and Mashhad for Imam Reza shrine… so naturally any bus plying between the two places is bound to be full of pilgrims. And so was my bus…

I struck conversation with the Iraqi gentleman… in Arabic… for last few days I had been speaking Persian… I am not a natural polyglot… and speaking in Arabic came with a lot of difficulty… I kept on forgetting pronouns, syntax, verb-conjugations… it is very difficult to imagine but Arabic and Persian are as different as chalk and cheese… and the only fact that binds them is Islam… due to which a lot of Arabic words have found place in Persian…

The Iraqi gentleman was accompanied by his aging mother and wife… they all were on pilgrimage… Iraq has about 40 percent of Shiite population… and till the American invasion; Shias lived under persecution… and have found a new voice only recently.

Shias despite their low numbers- have seen a kind of rejuvenation… power in Iraq and Lebanon to add to the already strengthened position in Syria… more say in Afghanistan and Bahrain… some say this is sponsored by aggressive policies of Iran.

The Iraqi gentleman was an extremely affable person… he offered me a portion from his lunch and was pleasantly surprised with the fact that I could speak a wee bit of Arabic… in fact while speaking to him- by and by- I could remember more and more of Arabic words and could speak to him even further.

I tried to find out if Iraqi Shias also revere Ayatollah Khomeini… and came to realize that Iraqis have their own Ayatollah Ali Sistani… there are a few subtle differences between the Iranian and Iraqi Shias… Iraqi Shias, as a matter of fact, are closer to Arabs living in Iran in South-West Region… places like Ahvoz etc…

One thing led to another and I realized that even in Iran… different places have different Ayatollahs… Shiraz, Mashhad and other places have their own Ayatollahs… and the structures of hierarchy are not as rigid as I expected them to be…

Iran has been an eye-opener in many other respects… some of which I already knew and therefore anticipated… and some which I didn’t know… and therefore was taken by surprise…

The Iraqi gentleman asked me if I was a Muslim… this, according to me, was an not-so-existential question in Iran… as it has been elsewhere in Islamic world… the majority of Iranians are relaxed about their religious identities and of the others… saying that one is a non-Muslim is never a big issue… no suggestions that a non-Muslim is wading his way in darkness… and is a qafir, a non-believer… it perhaps has something to do with the history of Iran… of having seen the first monotheistic religion… of seeing the first historically recorded prophet… Zoroastrianism and Zoroaster… the only thing which actually refrained it from becoming a religion of the books was- perhaps- lack of mention in the Quran… and had it been the case… it could have got elevated to the same status as of Judaism and Christianity…

Recorded history suggests that Iranian, though generally welcoming to the new religion of Islam, also tried their best to preserve their Zoroastrian heritage… the Zoroastrian kings were named as history-less kings in Juda-Islamic history… and therefore preserved.

Thus elsewhere I posed as a Hindu, Buddhist and sometimes as a Aatish-parast (a Zoroastrian)… at different occasions… somewhere at the back of my mind was the fact that Shia and Sunni are sworn enemies… and posing as a Muslim and then not passing off as a Shia (about which I knew very little) could be counter-productive… and mind you in Iran it does… like it does elsewhere in Sunni world, where many a times… Shias are considered not only non-Muslims but worse… a heretic sect.

This was my last chance to test the waters… I said I was a Muslim- not a Shia but a Sufi (which in many ways I am)… the Iraqi gentleman knew, henceforth, that I am not a Shia… something unknown for him… a Sufi… but not a Shia, nonetheless… but the warmth didn’t go… at the end of the journey… in Mashhad… he hugged me… and thanked me for helping him out at times…

The help… which I provided him… was something of an experience for me… an experience I am not likely to forget ever…

Iranians don’t know Arabic… and yet some of them know a few words here and there… to help the Arabs who visit Iran for pilgrimage… in fact when I first landed in Mashhad… I saw an aero plane of Saudi Airways… and met at the immigration counter hordes of Arabs from Dammam… the eastern Saudi Arabia, which is Shia-majority, though overall a marginalized minority in Saudi Arabia…

The Iraqi gentleman was having problems while communicating with the bus executive… he wanted to stop the vehicle because his wife was feeling nauseated… I came in and told the bus executive in Persian about the problem and the bus came to stop by a roadside mosque…

Later due to my language skill… I came much in demand… translating Arabic to broken Persian… and Persian to broken Arabic… from Arabs to the Iranians and Afghans… this was a numbing moment… a Hindu from India was a linking pin between Iranians and Arabs and Afghan… I am not likely to ever forget the experience…

I am also not likely to forget the surreal Salt Lake which one sees on the Qom-Mashhad road… miles and miles of it… it’s a beautiful sight.

Morning, I found myself in Mashhad… the place from where it all begun.

Record of Event during my Persia visit

Day One- Flew into Mashhad; Took a Taxi to Neyshabur- saw Khayyam’s Mausoleum, Attar’s Mausoleum, Kamal-ol-Mulk’s Mausoleum, Took Night Bus to Tehran.

Day Two- Reached Tehran; Visited Jamshediye Park, Golestan Palace and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Mausoleum; Slept in Tehran

Day Three- Bus to Chalus- through the Alborz Mountains; Shared Taxi to Rasht- alongside the Caspian; Taxi to Masuleh; Walk in Masuleh; Slept therein

Day Four- Early Morning Walk in Masuleh; Shared Taxi to Fouman; Shared Taxi to Rasht; Night Bus to Kerman- via Qazvin, Tehran, Qom, Yazd and Rafsanjan.

Day Five- Reached Kerman, Walk in Kerman Bazar; Trip to Kaluts; Night Stay in Kaluts Desert.

Day Six- Visit to Salt River, Back to Kerman; Another Visit to Kerman Bazar; Evening Bus to Yazd, Reached Yazd and a small walk, Slept in Yazd.

Day Seven- Morning Trip to Narin Castle, Chakmak Fire Temple, A Barren Mud-city; Trip to Tower of Silence and Yazd Fire Temple; Walk in the Old Yazd City; Taxi to Shiraz- stopped at Pasargade Gate and Slept in the car.

Day Eight- Visited Pasargad, Necropolis and Persepolis; Drove to Shiraz- visited various sites including Saadi and Hafez Tombs; Night Bus to Isfahan.

Day Nine- Reached Isfahan, Visited the Imam Maidan, Bridges, Armenian Quarters; Slept in Isfahan

Day Ten- Morning Walk to See the Jameh Mosque and Old Jameh Mosque; Bus to Kashan; Reached Kashan; Quick tour to a few historical houses; Slept in Kashan

Day Eleven- Visited Fin Park, Sialk, Other Historical Houses, and Mosques; Slept in Kashan.

Day Twelve- Taxi to Abyaneh and Back; Bus to Qom; Visited Qom- Fatima-al Masumeh shrine; Overnight bus to Mashhad

Day Thirteen- Reached Mashhad; Visited Imam Reza Shrine, Tous, Nadir Shah Mausoleum; Slept in Mashhad

Day Fourteen- Trip to Kang and Abardeh Villages; a Quick trip to Imam Reza Shrine; Shopping; Slept in Mashhad

Day Fifteen- Early Morning Taxi to Airport; Flew Back to Kandahar

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Eight: Saffron Monastery

I reached Mardin at around 10 am…. The bus broke down somewhere midway… and the journey that would have got completed in 2 hours took almost 4 hours…

Mardin… I realized was a hill-station like area… with topsy turvy narrow roads… I was told that Syrian border is mere 60 kilometers from Mardin… and till about 100 years ago, Mardin was a significant Syrian Orthodox city… however, now it is almost 100 percent Muslim. It was one of the major sites of anti-Christian violence… many Christians escaped to Syria… and many more ghettoed in a nearby Christian stronghold called Midyat… which is perhaps the last bastion of Syrian Orthodox population in Turkey.

Even today… there are few living Syrian Orthodox churches… prominent of them are Virgin Mary Church… these are managed by the last few Christian families left in the city… in contrast, Midyat has a large number of churches and monasteries… and a vibrant Christian population… Alison told me that Midyat is very different from rest of Turkey and Arab… liberal lifestyle… one can see girls wearing mini-skirts and trendy European fashion… it exudes a European feel… somewhat like Maronite-dominated north Lebanon.

Midyat, incidentally, is also the hometown of my Norwegian friend Maria Korkunc… who studied Arabic with me in 2006… she is one of the most affable human beings that I have ever met.

I landed- firstly- at a bus company, which ran services to Hassankeyf… and enquired about next bus to Hassankeyf… it was at 1 pm… I had 3 hours to do some site-seeing in Mardin… I beckoned a taxi to make some quick visits…

There are two places of interest… Saffron Monastery, which used to be the head quarters of Syrian Orthodox denomination till about 100 years ago… and the Church’s patriarch used to live here till about 1920… when the anti-Christian violence forced him to leave the area and shift his center to Sadanaya in Syria. The other is Kasimiye Madarassa, which was constructed in 1500 by Seljuk kings… when Muslims captured this city after the Mongols… this was followed by gradual Islamization and intolerance towards Christians… which completed in early 1900s. Both the places were at the either ends of the city… and I had time to see one of them and then take a walk around the place before catching bus at 1 pm. I chose Saffron Monastery, and hired a taxi for 25 Liras… to and fro and waiting at the Monastery.

Mongol invasions and rule… is a poignant phase in Islamic history… the Muslim world was devastated by the ferociousness of Mongol Invasion… millions of them were butchered… city was razed to dust… the Ummayad Caliphate was destroyed… Damascus became a city of corpses… this was a dark period… where the Caliphate, with its liberal tradition, was gone… leaving behind a vacuum, which was filled by the religious scholars… two streams emanated- the Sufism and the traditionalists… the traditionalists kept on becoming more or more dogmatic… and it was perhaps the start of intolerant Islam… confrontation with the Christians, Jews and Pagans … the trend which continues even today.

Mardin… in the yesteryears… was an important town… was one of the junctions of Silk Road…. From where some caravans proceeded towards Aleppo and some to towards Istanbul… and therefore it was always contested by different forces… it has a typical Arab feel about it… the architecture, like Urfa, is pre-dominantly Arab… and I later discovered that Arabic is also the lingua-franca of the people here… not Kurdish and certainly not Turkish.

It took some while for the driver to realize that I speak in Arabic… he said that he was an Arab… an Arab Muslim. The language gelled up… so much so that he dropped the price for the trip… 15 Liras for locals… 25 Liras for tourists… you are a brother… and therefore only 15 Liras.

The Saffron Monastery in almost 10 kilometers from the city… the location of the monastery tells a story of itself. Located amidst barren mountains… perhaps… was the reason for its continued safe existence amidst thousand years of persecution and turmoil… and only recently… in the aftermath of first world war and Christian persecution in Turkey… did the Syrian patriarch finally decided to shift his base to Syria… among the relative peaceful and tolerant climes.

The monastery is beautiful and true to its name… it is saffron in color… mingling in its saffron and beige environment… the hills and the barren lands. The turmoil has now settled and therefore, today, the monastery survives without any security and in relative peace… one of the monks told me… the last threat emanated in 1970s, when some Muslim of Mardin accused the Monastery of trying to preach Christianity. But since then… it has been peaceful. The locals got busy in the Kurdish movement and there has been a stronger presence of Security forces in the area. Thus, in a way, PKK movement has been a blessing for the Monastery and remaining Christian population in the region.

Last night, Stefan has told me about the eldest monk in the monastery- who was in his 90s and had seen much turmoil… he barely speaks and walks with some support… I tried seeing him and realized that he was not keeping well today… so I could not meet him

Saffron Monastery, it seems, had a long history… it was- to begin with- a Pagan Monastery… it has a room in the basement, where the pagans used to see the Sun deity and do their religious rituals…

It had witness, therefore, and withstood many faiths and their interplay… and lies at the heart of this unique region and its complexities…

It was time to move back… and do some walking in Mardin town… which many had told me… was a wonderful walk… and that I may still see a lot of its unique architecture… the mosques, the madarassas and Caravan Serais…

I got back to the town… and realized that I had still some time to go… before catching the bus to Hassnkeyf… so decided to take a walk.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Seven: The Mosaics of Urfa

Over the dinner, Stefan and I had a very wonderful conversation… interjected at times by Aziz…

We were having home cooked meal… the thin Kurdish bread … somewhat like Indian- “Rumali Roti”… lentil soup… pieces of chicken kebabs and fried eggplant… it was delicious. Aziz’s wife was an excellent cook… she reminded me of my grandmother… very pretty and mother-like… she had a lots of tattoo on her face… a reminded of Kurdish tribal culture… Alison told me that Kurds were pagans and Zoroastrian till as late as 18th century… and therefore much of their present customs have pagan roots… tattooing is just one of them.

One of the thematic features of all my Middle Eastern jaunts has been communal eating… people eating together and sometimes from the same plate… initially, they were a bit hard on my Indian sensibilities, which laid huge stress on cleanliness and hygiene… however, with time, I realized that communal eating is not all the unclean and unhygienic… in fact, we in India, often do so many other unclean and unhygienic things that our insistence on separate eating appears to be very eccentric.

Communal eating does some very good things… it makes us talk to each other… the eating sessions thus become very relaxed, stretched out… and refreshing… we talk, we share… communal eating teaches us many things, which were ingrained in the tribal societies… and got lost with civilization and urbanization. It is, in a way, back to the basics phenomena.

Stefan told me a lot of interesting things about Urfa, Harran and finally about Gobekli Teppe… and how it is expanding the frontiers of history.

It is widely believed that human civilization is about 8000 years old… evidences of first human settlements start appearing in Egypt in 6000 BC… or was it believed… however, recently evidences of even older human settlements have been discovered in Western Deserts of Egypt… pushing back frontiers of history by another say 2000 years… but these human settlements have been rather basic. But Gobekli Teppe has changed it all… Gobekli Teppe is believed to be a pagan temple, which dates back to roughly 10000 BC… almost 12000 years old… the temple is so constructed that it must have required more than the primitive civilization to create it. Thus, it is also believed that human settlements must have started at least 2000 years before Gobekli Teppe was created… thus, pushing back dates of human settlements to almost 14000 years ago… a quantum jump of roughly 6000 years!!!

Stefan also told me about a recent discovery in Urfa… of Greco-Roman mosaics… it was just across the main road where Lizbon Guest House was located… no one knew about these mosaics because the excavation was still going on and hasn’t been announced to the world… he showed me its photographs… and they were beautiful… almost as beautiful as the mosaics that I had seen in Madaba, Jordan. I instantly made up my mind to see those mosaics early in the morning, next day.

My next day plan was clear… I had to go to Mardin… see Saffron Monastery and thereafter push to Hassankeyf. Aziz cautioned me that I would be missing quite a few spots in Mardin, whole of Midyat (which has some beautiful functional Syrian churches, and a sizeable Syrian Orthodox population)… and then suggested me to take an early morning bus to Mardin. The first bus, according to him… left at around 6 am and that I should board on it to make to Hassankeyf just in time.

That meant that I should wake up at 5 am or so… see the mosaics, and then get back to Guest House… so that Aziz could drop me to the bus stand in time. I did just that and at 5 am… found myself standing at the gate of excavation point… with nobody but me…

I cried out Marhaba many a times… and at last was rewarded with the sight of half asleep guard… trying to find out as to who is calling for him at these unearthly hours… he came forward and asked me something- probably why I was here and what did I want… in Turkish. I tried explaining him in English and Persian… but he didn’t know either of them… and then I tried the third language that third language… “Ureed en Ushahid hada makaan” (I want to see this place)… he was wide awake hearing me… and asked – “Tahaki Arabi… min aina” (Do you speak Arabic… where are you from)… “Ana min Al-Hind” (I am from India)…

This did the trick… he ushered me in the confines of the place… and then pointed towards the tent which enclosed the excavations… he cautioned that there is no electricity and therefore light and I might have to use torch to see the mosaics…

The tented area was longitudinal… almost 50 meters long… and therefore gave an appearance of a tunnel… I walked almost 10 meters trying to make out mosaics with the help of small torch that I was carrying… but further ahead it became claustrophobic… I was all alone amidst the darkness… and therefore I stepped back.

From what I could see… the mosaics were very colorful and descriptive… the themes were largely animals and birds; with some miniatures here and there… the light was too dim to take photographs… I tried taking a few with slow shutter speed, while steadying the camera with help of my body… but the photos were bad… I felt good and bad… good for have discovering the place… and bad for not being able to see it all and shoot it. It was time to go back…

While I was returning back… a bus screeched near me… it was from Iran… with a bus load of Iranian pilgrims. Yesterday, too, I had seen a number of Iranian pilgrims at the Holy Pond… Aziz told me that Shiite Muslims revere this site much more than Sunnis do… and Urfa is always full of Shiite Pilgrims.

I reached the Bus Stand in nick of time… Aziz dropped me and Stefan, who was going to Gaziantep for some sight-seeing. I hugged Aziz… for all his fiery reputation… Aziz was a gem of human being… he treated me not as a customer but as a family member… and I loved being there with him.

I slept as soon as I boarded the bus… the last few days had been hectic and so the next few days were expected to be…

Iran beckons

In a few days from now… I embark on a long awaited journey… to a place, which I call India’s civilizational cousin- Iran.

Iran… instills fear in many a hearts… though I have been lucky to have met many individuals who profess by the beauty of Iran, and the hospitable nature of Iranians… some even go to an extent that the much feared government machinery is actually not all that bad… and once they are convinced that you are a genuine traveler, they go out of their way to help.

It is strange… why should Iran get so much of bad publicity… perhaps its opposition to the West is a big reason… an equally bad reason has been Iran’s failure in public diplomacy… but I am not deterred by it… I have a precedent… Syria… another country, which is feared by the media… often dubbed as an axes of evil… but I met some most wonderful people therein… it was an absolute pleasure traveling in Syria… especially to Hamah, which people described as epicenter of Islamism in Syria… I can never forget Abdu, who gave me a great company while traveling to Krac De-Chevaliers and Afamea.

Iran… some say… is an even bigger eye opener than Syria… I believe so… but a degree of apprehension remains… why? I really don’t know… perhaps the bad-press lingers on with me… a wee bit. But I also believe that I would come back triumphant… triumphant over my fears.

One of the most prominent attribute of my travels is to extend the boundaries of my comfort zones…. Egypt to begin with… Syria, Jordan and Israel… and then Turkey… these places kept on inflating my comfort zone… Iran in that sense actually does not inflate my comfort zone… for instance; I am fairly conversant with Persian as a language… I know quite some people in Indian mission in Iran (for the worst case scenario)…. But then, yes, in a sense I feel that this visit too… inflates my comfort zone… this time on… I am fighting my human apprehensions… the unknown fears.

There is another problem, though… and that pertains to deciding my itinerary… the more I read about Iran… the more I am confounded by what Iran has to offer. The variety is almost overwhelming… the problem is about what to cover and what not to cover…

After much of reading I have decided a list of places which I may try to cover… try, because I would be staying in Iran for two weeks time… and it is humanly impossible to cover them all…

• Mashhad
• Neyshabur
• Tehran
• Rasht and Masuleh
• Zanjan and Sulemaniah
• Takht-e-Sulayman
• Hamadan and Ali Sadr Caves
• Kermanshah
• Ahvoz, Choga Zanbil and Sushtar
• Shiraz, Pasargade and Persepolis
• Isfahan
• Kashan and Abunayeh
• Qom
• Yazd
• Kerman and Dasht-e-Lut

Anyway you look at it… this is a huge list. I am almost certain that I would be able to cover no more than a half of it… but then who knows, I am luckier.

My experience has been like this only… everytime when I have aimed for a huge list… people have deterred me… they have said that I might not be able to do it… but then I have done almost the entire list… give or take a few places…

Wish me… I have been desperately waiting for this day… I learnt Persian just for this day. And I am sure- I will survive and succeed.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Six: A stroll by the town

The holy pond was a kilometer away from Lizbon Guest House… I walked to the place… the pond is surrounded by a couple of mosques and a park, where all of Urfa seems to converge in the evening… the park is nice and refreshing… one can just sit on one of its bench and see the life passing-by… Urfa has a typical Arab feel about it… it seems so away from its Turkish antecedents…

The holy pond is a delight to watch… thousands and thousands of fishes in a small pond… all black in color… and when you throw morsels of food (it is believed that feeding these fishes brings good luck, and therefore every visitor- like me- makes it a point to by a 0.50 Lira fish food plate and feeds the fishes), the fishes jump over one another to grab the morsels… it is a great sight… it brought out affront the child in me… I almost laughed seeing the fishes behaving so…

A couple of steps away is the mosque, which houses the cave where Prophet Abraham was born… the father of monotheistic religion… and in another mosque beside the pond there is the place where he finally rested…

One of the most overpowering visuals of Urfa is its castle… it towers over the entire Urfa City… a perfect location to safeguard it from invaders… perched amidst the Byzantine and the Persian empire… the Arabs, the Seljuks and the Kurds… Urfa needed a formidable castle to protect it… and this was it…

Further down the road from the holy pond… the road forks into two going up… I wasn’t sure which one to take to reach atop the castle… I took the one on the left… and walked up. This road led me- not to the castle but to a hillock by its side- separated by a moat. On this hillock there is a Muslim cemetery… surrounded by a small little neighborhood. I walked in the cemetery looking at the graves… some of them were almost 300 years old… this place has been there for quite some time. I also strayed into the neighborhood… and saw another marriage ceremony… Kurds are a wee bit different from other Muslims, because they, like Hindus, believe in auspicious days of marriage – though not based on planetary positions but on traditions… perhaps it is a vestige of their pagan origin.

I watched this marriage from closer quarters than the other two… during the first two marriages… I was affected by the Turkish description of Kurds… unruly and inhospitable… now that description had tapered off… I found Kurds to be extremely hospitable and joyous people… I actually made friends with four well-dressed youth, who invited me to join the marriage… but I had to move on… I thanked them and started to walk downwards… to take the right turn at the fork, downhill.

The castle gives some very impressive views of the entire city... you can see some very panoramic views of Urfa and beyond… it was built in antiquity… when Urfa was Edessa a Greco-Roman city of profound importance… the city was ruled by the Pagans… the pagans were replaced by early Christians and then by the Muslims… during this changing over Urfa kept on losing its importance and sheen till it was brought into prominence by the Abbasids of Baghdad, who rebuilt this castle and brought it into its current form.

There are a number of evidences of the castle remote past… ruins of a pagan temple… facing east… with a holy pond in front. Then there were remains of ancient brickwork, which are also visible at the center of the castle… two huge pillars- typical Byzantine architecture…

It made me sit by one of the walls of the castle overlooking a 50 meters cliff… dangling my legs outwards… and think about how to analyze history… the more I see these historical heritage the more I am forced to think about ways and means of analyzing the history… the architecture, the masonry, the layouts… everything has profound implications… we can decipher the history through them… almost so accurately as if the events have occurred in the recent past…

It was time to move back… I walked down… and decided to take a stroll in the market of Urfa… they are famed because they have an Arab feel… somewhat like a souq… and one who has not seen a traditional Arab souq would be quite impressed with what he sees in Urfa… all around I could hear a commotion, smell of spices… and loud Kurdish and Arabic music… this place hardly seemed to be a Turkish town… as somebody told me later… barring the police and the army … nobody in Kurdish parts is a Turk.

I bought cassettes of Kurdish music… music, I believe, is one of the most lasting legacies one can carry with him from distant lands… Umm Koulthoum from Egypt… Reed Music from Konya… Maniza Daulat from Kabul and Pastho folk music from Kandahar… what else can one carry with him in this ephemeral world.

I reached back to Lizbon at 5 pm… by this time Aziz was back… with two of his other guests… one Stefan from Netherlands and his cousin… Aziz invited me to join them over a cup of tea…

Aziz had a fiery reputation… many swear by his candid nature and a no-nonsense attitude… while many others find him very pushy at times… the common complaint being that he insists that his guests should necessarily go on excursions with him… and if refused he can be very rude. When I came to Lizbon… I had my apprehensions… but after knowing Aziz more… these apprehensions just melted away.

Aziz definitely is very protective about his guests… and feels that if they do not go on excursions with him… they might be fooled… bringing bad name to Kurdistanis. He is a ferocious pro-Kurdistan nationalist… and doesn’t lose any opportunity to run down the Turkish government…. But definitely in his hearts of hearts he is a wonderful person and when he realized that I was on a shoestring budget… he gave me a lot of insights to travel around the place the cheapest possible way… he lamented that if I had come early in the morning I could have joined the Dutch cousins and could have seen Mardin, Gobelkiteppe and Harran for just 25 dollars per head.

I, too lamented the same…

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Five: Reaching Urfa

The next morning I woke up at 6am… and went for a stroll in the village… Faruk could speak a little bit of English… even though in monosyllables.

Our first destination was the mound behind Pero’s house… it was about 30 meters high… the slope was gentle… and while walking up the mound… I could see, here and there, some pottery pieces… I remembered Alison’s word… quite a few of them could be almost 1000 year old… it was a humbling experience to walk amidst the littering of history. Equally humbling were the views of endless Euphrates flood plains from atop the mound… almost endless… where-ever I looked till the horizons… it was plain… green.

Earliest Civilizations were all river-based… these rivers- Nile, Euphrates or Indus… had vast flood plains amidst desert… and thus they provided much needed fertility. However, they did something more important… they used to flood regularly… thus providing water beyond their immediate surroundings- and did not let dense vegetation to survive… and therefore allowing easy agriculture in their flood plains. In comparison Gangetic Civilization came much later because Ganges did not use to flood regularly… and therefore allowed very dense grasses/bushes to grow in its vicinity… so man had to wait for the invention of iron-based tools to use these areas… to cut grasses etc.

Thereafter, we took a walk around the village… met many people… who were starting their daily chores… it was a beautiful village… almost like an Indian village… with kind people… smiling and welcoming us anywhere we went.

After an aimless walk we went to the village pond… which has almost dried up… Faruk told me that every year villagers dig the pond a wee bit deeper to find some more of water… and somehow things keep on moving for them. But now the water has become a scarce commodity… A few years ago the local government arranged piped water for the village and constructed a reservoir at the top of mound… but that water is only able to meet the personal needs of the villagers and not the irrigational needs.

I asked him if he wanted to stay back in the village… he refused… and said that nearly every second house-hold in the village has at least one young male-member working in cities… he said that there is very little of future left in the village.

It was time to move back… we went home… (And I purposely call it home, because I had started feeling as comfortable therein) and I got ready to move…

At 8:30 am Alison and Omar joined us for breakfast… the breakfast like yesterday’s dinner was fabulous and lavish… the cheese was absolutely delicious and melted in my mouth… the fruits smelled fresh and sweet… I stuffed myself… not sure if I’d good such a home-like food anytime soon.

Alison asked for my honest opinion and I told her… I relished being here… and promised to keep in touch and be back with my family soon… I hugged Hilal, Faruk and Fatih and said good bye… it was time to move… when I was going Pero said that she was very happy that she had an Indian visitor for the first time… she said that unlike other visitors, I did not have any problem in adjusting with her family… and frugal facilities like squat toilet and eating with hands… I smiled… and said something from the bottom of my heart… I felt as if I was in India…

Omar drove me to Urfa… my next destination… before starting I asked Alison if she could recommend me a place to stay… She said that there is one Lizbon Guest House… however; she warned that Aziz- its owner- is a wee bit eccentric. But the Guest House is cheap and comfortable…. So! Lizbon it was….

We stopped briefly in Hilvan… where Omar showed me a Kurdish wedding… almost like the one which I had seen in Diyarbakir… thereafter, we restarted our journey to Urfa… 50 kilometers away.

We reached Urfa at noon… Omar dropped me in a street leading to Lizbon… I waved him good bye… and started searching for Lizbon.

Much of Urfa (the older parts) is built on a hill. The newer parts of Urfa, however, have been built in the plains surrounding it… and smaller hills in the vicinity. Searching for Lizbon in the old city, therefore, entailed a small walk uphill… which lead me to the gate of Lizbon.

The door was opened by an old lady… Aziz’s wife… she gave me a room to stay… and told me that Aziz is out on a trip with two Dutch tourists… to Gobekli Teppe and Harran. I sighed… I missed an opportunity to see these places… both the places are not served well by public transport (Harran, may be… but not surely Gobekli Teppe)… and are the biggest attractions in Urfa.

Urfa, according to legends, is the birth and the resting place of Prophet Abraham… and Harran some 60 kilometers away in South… was a place where he rested and preached for monotheism, while going on a Hajj to Mecca.

Apart from Harran, Urfa is famous for one more place… a pond full of fishes…. When, Prophet Abraham started preaching monotheism… the pagan king of Urfa got annoyed and order that Prophet Abraham should be thrown into fire. But when he was thrown, Allah intervened … the fire turned into a pond… and the burning charcoal into fishes… the pond remains. With thousands and thousands of fishes… it is believed that if somebody catches a fish from the pond… he would go blind.

After a quick lunch at Lizbon… it was time for some outing… to see the pond- the birth and resting place of Prophet Abraham… and then the Urfa citadel and the souk of Urfa.

Urfa lies at the Turkish-Arab frontier… it is very difficult to decide whether culturally its Kurdish or Arab… perhaps a mix… I felt very comfortable speaking Arabic in Urfa… quite a few people understood me.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Four: In the cradle of civilization

I first heard of Yuvajali while surfing on thorn-tree forum.

Thorn-tree forum has been refuge while digging out information on my Levant trip… and Anatolia trip. It has been a treasure trove of information. I have always maintained that the best travel (and not tourism) information are not to be found on Lonely Planets, Footprints but on travel forum… where avid travelers talk to each other… there you find real information- on and off the beaten tracks.

It is near the Kurdish town of Hilvan… some 5-6 kilometers from it. An enterprising Alison Tanik, who runs a small tourism outfit ‘Nomad Travels’, arranges village home-stays in Yuvajali- a Kurdish village…

I contacted her once I landed up in Turkey… and she worked out a package for me… which was fetching me from Euphrates river crossing at Siveric- dropping me to Diyarbakir for sight-seeing- and then arranging a village home-stay in the night – and in the morning- after a breakfast dropping me to Sanliurfa… my next stop… all for USD 75. It seemed a shade expensive by backpacking standards… but the experience was something really unique. And I promised to myself… that I would come again to Yuvajali… with my family.

My first stop was at Alison’s house… she had made a dream-like cottage for her amidst a pistachio orchard… the location was so scenic… that I sighed out a cold breath.

Alison is a British national… and came to Turkey years ago and fell in love with the place… she never went back and settled in Turkey… marrying a gentle Omar… and recently the couple was blessed with a daughter, whom they named… INDIA. Life is full of surprises… meeting India in a remote village in South-East Turkey… who would have thought?

Alison offered me a hot cup of coffee… and then we spoke about a lot of issues… Kurdistan movement – which, according to her, was depleting… and then we moved to the topic of India… surprisingly, she was wonderfully well-read about India… and we shared an excellent discussion on India, its governance and the British effects on India… it was one of the most intellectual stimulating discussions discussion I had had in many years… I, thereafter, realized… Alison is a Cambridge alumnus… writes for Newsweek… and teaches, online, in host of US universities… ‘Nomad Tours’ is not a business- but a mission for her… to bring livelihood, employment and education in a distant Kurdish village… which thereafter replicates itself everywhere.

Yuvajali village is located a kilometer away from Alison’s house… presently Alison arranges village home-stay in Pero’s house… Pero, incidentally, is Omar’s sister… (Though recently, I heard from her… she has started arranging village home-stay in a few more homes in the village). Pero’s family consisted of husband Halil… and three sons- Faruk, Fatih, and Aylin.

It was wonderful meeting them all… the family was very kind… and went out of the way to make me comfortable… initially, though, I felt a hitch… I felt as if I am being too well-treated because I am a customer… but then later I realized that Kurdish hospitality in like this… a guest is always first and foremost.

It was, soon, time for dinner… a lavish dinner comprising of cottage cheese, honey, jaggery, country bread, rice, chicken and potato-puree was laid before me… Alison had earlier told me… that all the ingredients are from the village itself and nothing is brought from outside… the dinner was heavenly… it was after many days that I ate such a refreshing dinner… compared to it, the dinner at Cappadocia Carnival night was… too artificial.

I was tired because of continuous traveling… moreover I wanted to see the village in early morning… Alison told me that I can have breakfast at 9 am and then Omar would drive me down to Sanliurfa. So, she suggested me to wake by 6 am and have a walk around the village…

Yuvajali village lies in the Mesopotamian plains… the Euphrates flood plains… and adjacent to it is a small pond, which used to get flooded by floods every year… however, today, because of an upstream dam… floods don’t happen… the village pond- which was the only source of water for the village has dried- and water has become the biggest problem for the villagers… Yuvajali is on the verge of extinction…

What is even more worrying is that Yuvajali is not a new dwelling… but, like multitudes of its sister villages, is perhaps among the oldest villages in the history of mankind.

Euphrates flood plains are endless plains… but at some places, suddenly, some hillocks crops up… according to Archaeologists… such sudden change in contours are artificial… and hide a history. Pero’s house is located just below one such hillock.

About 50 kilometers, archaeologists dug one such hillock and found Gobekli Teppe… a 10000 years old pagan temple… which predates any other human dwelling… even the early Egyptian monuments… similarly, few years ago- there were heavy rains in Yuvajali… and this rain revealed some ancient Mesopotamian cuneiforms… Alison’s guess is that these cuneiforms were about 3-5000 years old… and they were revealed from the top soil of the hillock (and therefore are among the recent phases of history)… her eyes sparkled when she said… “Imagine what lies beneath the hillock… perhaps another Gobekli Teppe.”

I was sleeping in the cradle of perhaps, the first ever civilization in the world…

It is ironic that a water dam on Euphrates is going to destroy a 10000 year old way of life… for better or for worse… life, after such monumental changes… doesn’t remain the same… I don’t pass value judgments… still… we need to look back and question… some introspecting questions to ourselves as a society…

The Yuvajali pond… would never get flooded again… Alison told me… that people have started leaving the village… the new generation has moved to coastal Turkey… and would never come back… and if the pace is anything to go by… Yuvajali may become deserted in next 20 years… after almost 10000 years of existence.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Three: Lost in the Maze

I was ushered into a room, where some elderly people were sipping tea… and animatedly discussing something

Even before I could speak… I was handed over a cup of hot tea… south east Turkey surely is much colder than its coastal counterpart… and a cup of tea was most welcome even at 12 in the noon… I sipped it… Kurdish tea is sweeter but stronger than the Turkish tea.

“Country”… an elderly gentleman with an white-black Arab headscarf asked me… “Hindistan”… “Sipas”… Persian for hello…

Few days back, when I used to study Persian, my teacher told me that Persians have many ways of greeting somebody… from the religious Salaam-alaikum to Marhaba to Sipas… he also told me that whereas Marhaba is more popular in eastern Iran… Sipas was more popular in western Iran… so, it seems, Kurdish and Persian inter-mingle a lot in western Iran and eastern Turkey.

This elderly gentleman, I found out, was one of the leading literary figures of Diyarbakir… he knew apart from Kurdish and Turkish… little bit of English, Arabic and quite a bit of Persian… and thereafter, we started talking in Persian… understanding a bit and inferring another bit… the conversation henceforth became easier.

The first part of conversation was about establishing my religious identity… he grilled me on fundamentals of Islam to establish that I was a Muslim… little did he know… that he was chartering in my very own territory… Islam and its philosophy has, by now, become an interest area for me…

The second part was about the Kurdish problem… he lamented that Diyarbakir- despite its historical richness- remains a neglected city… no one comes here… and return after seeing the superficial coastal Turkey. And then came a zapper… Kurdistan is very much like Hindistan’s Kashmir… under the yoke of Hindistan… and tried to ascertain my feelings for Kashmir. I changed the topic diplomatically.

Kurdish movement, incidentally, started off as a communist rebellion… supported by the Soviet Union… PKK (the Peasants and Workers Party) still sounds a communist group for peasants and workers… (and actually Kurds formed a disproportionately large peasant and worker group in urban Turkey)… however… in recent years Kurdish movement is getting more and more radicalized… it is being hijacked by Islamists… the Kurdish population- especially the younger generation- is more susceptible. In a way, however, Kurdish rebellion is following the general trend of Turkish society.

In fact, the Tayyip Erdogan government of AKP (Justice and Development Party) is said to have used soft Islam as a vehicle to win over the alienated Kurdish population… and till a few months ago, it was working well… till, some people allege, Army struck back… turning small mole-hill like Kurdish incidents into mountains… and deploying itself in Kurdish cities… the cleavage resurfaced yet again.

The third part of the conversation, however, was the most interesting… I am least interested in politics… only to earn my daily bread… I am more interested in culture, linguistics… and in the third part of the conversation… he told me about various dialects of Kurdish… and how Kurmanji Kurdish is almost same as Persian… the numbers for instance are the same… Yak, Du, Sey, Chahar, Paench, Shish, Haft, Hashd, Noo, Daa….

While I was leaving the place… he arranged for a tourist map of Diyarbakir… I asked for the Armenian Church… and Syrian Church… he raised his eye-brows… why, as a Muslim, I would like to see them… and showed me the directions.

The Armenian Church… lies in a dilapidated state… William Dalrymple mentions it as a cattle-shed… now there is not even a cattle-shed but a crumbled old building… the Syrian Church- the Mariamma Cathedral… exists… I met its patron… who spoke a wee bit of Arabic… “Today only 14 families remain… most of them elderly… once Diyarbakir had almost 10000 families… now only 14…. Most of them have migrated to the West… some have shifted to Midyat… where a number of Syrian families still live”…. I could sense a fear and a melancholy in his eyes.

It was time to visit other sites of the city… I walked up the wall… at a distance I could see the magnificent views of Tigris… some 3 kilometers away… the walls are majestic… I met a few locals… one of them- a fan of local football club- Ultraslan… made me shoot a few of his photographs with a banner of it…

While walking aimlessly in the citadel… I met a few mischievous kids, a Kurdish marriage party… with very beautiful girls dancing to the tune of Kurdish pop… a luxury which has been realized only recently… till a few years ago… Kurdish music was banned in Turkey.

It was time to stroll back towards Ulu Cami… I saw the Karavan Serai… which has been the second most evocative building of all the Diyarbakir… the Nabi Cami… built by one of the blood relatives of the Prophet… the birth place of Ziya Gokalp… one of the leaders of Young Turk Movement… his lineage is Kurdish, but he fought along with the Turks… and always refrained any divisions between the Kurds and Turks… his place, therefore, is surprisingly well kept- as compared to other monuments in Diyarbakir… and the house of great Kurdish poet Cahit Taranci… who, again, is remembered as a great Turkish nationalist.

Diyarbakir… is a city of confusion… the oppressors who feel oppressed… the oppressed who no longer exist… where those who stood for Turk-Kurd unity and those who opposed it… are venerated in the same breath.

It is, like its architecture, a maze… one needs to seep into its street deeper and deeper to understand the nature of this momentous city… I couldn’t… for the lack of time… I had to move on… though after being here I had heard one part of the story… and waited for the other…

I met Omar exactly at the agreed upon time… and started by journey towards the small Kurdish village of Yuvajali

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Two: A strife-torn citadel

Diyarbakir… is an uncut diamond

History is littered all around within the confines of its citadel… whose walls are so magnificent that other such structures just pale into insignificance…

For instance… when I saw the Lal Qila in Delhi for the first time… I actually gasped for breath and wondered… would I be able to see anything of equal magnificence ever… and then when I saw Tughlakabad in the same city… I knew that I have to see a lot in this world. Diyarbakir reminded me that a lot remains to be seen.

For last one week, people had been telling me to avoid Diyarbakir… some rejecting it as a group of crumbled monuments… some terming it a badland… and some saying that it was a rendezvous of thugs and con-masters. Diyarbakir- if is anything of the above… I didn’t see any evidence.

For instance… its mighty ramparts… they are about 1500 years old… and everybody warned me that don’t go atop them… they are infested with drug-addicts and petty criminals- who won’t blink before mugging me. And yet when I dared to I got a fresh whiff of air, a scene so majestic that I was dumbstruck… at a distance, I could see the Tigris River… the sister of Euphrates… along the banks of which Mesopotamia breathed… almost 7000 years ago.

Diyarbakir has a checkered history… in old ages it lied at the cross roads of mighty empires like Assyrians, Persians, Byzantine and the Armenians… changing hands from one to another… seeing bloody battles every time it changed hands… it, perhaps was important as an important trade and agriculture center… sitting beside the Tigris… and overlooking all the important trade routes… everyone, therefore, wanted to control Diyarbakir (or Amida).

Diyarbakir, however, was captured in the early years of Islam by the invading Arab Armies… and thereafter became a Muslim city… first ruled by Kurds… then by Kurdish governors of the Selcuks… and then by the Selcuks… and then Ottoman.

Realizing the importance of the city, Kurdish rulers strengthened the might citadel… with massive ramparts of black basalt stones… the walls of Diyarbakir are almost 6-7 kilometers long… originally built by the Roman rulers… they were added and strengthened by the Kurds… and now even after 1500 years of that strengthening… they engulf the entire city in its strong clasp… as if they have been built only a few hundred years ago… no sign of decay… no sign of weakness… these walls define Diyarbakir.

And no place can be more poignant a reminder of the history in the heart of Diyarbakir… than the Ulu Cami (the grand mosque) revered to be 5th most revered mosque in the Arab, Levant and Anatolia combined. Omar dropped me at a market place in-front of Ulu Cami… I roamed inside the mosque… and everywhere I could see the traces of the grand history…. Foundations of a Pagan Temple… Roman pillars with Greco-Roman artwork… a solar clock built by Byzantine… and then finally the Mosque built by the Kurds… it has seen all and weathered the history.

The streets of Diyarbakir are a maze… and therefore finding the uncut diamonds littered all around is difficult. I was told that there is a functioning Syrian Orthodox Church and an Armenian Church somewhere… but finding it was difficult… the Turkish Government has hardly made Diyarbakir geared for tourism and therefore there are no road-marks anywhere.

Someone told me that I should try to go to Behrampasha Mosque… there is a small tourist office over there… I started navigating the place… to reach the non-descript tourist office, which in other tourist spots should have been right in the heart of the city.

The modern history of Diyarbakir is written with blood, cruelty and deceit.

Once Diyarbakir had a huge Armenian and Syrian Christian population… but during the Young Turk movement… the Turks and Kurds came together to flush them out… Armenians had no place to go… they were mercilessly butchered in what is today known as Armenian genocide… while Syrians were only a wee bit lucky… many of them migrated to Syria- which due to its historical eclectic nature provided them refuge… and some others migrated eastwards in Syrian dominated areas like Mardin and Midyat… one of my next destinations. It is indeed an irony that today… the Kurds, who betrayed their neighbors during the flushing out of Orthodox Christians… are at the receiving end… and Diyarbakir has become a battle ground between the Turks and Kurds.

I finally found Behrampasha mosque tucked away in one of the non-descript quarters of the city. It was, apart from its anonymity… a very visit-worthy building… made up of black and white stones… a typical Seljuk building.

A couple of steps away, I found the tourist office… which was converted from an old Diyarbakir house… the place didn’t looked anything like a tourist office… but more of a tea-house… a number of locals sitting here and there… and sipping tea… and smoking Sheesha…. The environment of the place was very informal… and it had an air of comfort all around… I felt that I have come to a right place…

The people were rather surprised to see me… for they were not accustomed to see a tourist walking into this office… and occasionally if somebody walked in- he used to be some white man… not a South Asian…

They tried talking to me… but nobody knew English… they first tried Turkish… and then they spoke something which distantly resembled a language that I knew… Persian.

I said a few words in Persian… and that seemed distantly similar to them… and the ice broke.

They were using the Kurmanji Kurdish.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty One: Road to Diyarbakir

Early morning, I woke up at 5 am… I went out for a walk for one last time before leaving Karadut… the beauty of Karadut could be compared to a Himalayan village… pure and sublime. I had an eyeful… of early morning, the whiff of fog, farmers tilling their field and mosque’s call… in this wilderness… I couldn’t help noticing that the prayer-calls are so blessed a sound… it brings so much of serenity.

By 6 am it was time to move… Aly had told me that the first ferry from Siveric to the other side comes at 6:30 am and leaves at 7 am… accordingly; I had packed my bags in the night itself… I had a quick breakfast… and was on my way to Siveric

The drive to ferry point… like any other drive in the area is extremely scenic… from a distance you start seeing majestic views of Euphrates… the mighty river, which gives life to a region- which otherwise would have been a dry desert.

Aly left me at the ferry point and told me that ferry would come in a few minutes and I can board it for free… I liked the idea… I didn’t want to be guided any more by anybody… and wanted to roam free meet people and if possible talk to them…

The place was full of people… it was a daily chore for many of them… crossing the river… and going to the largest town in the vicinity- Diyarbakir… the lifeline of this region. Eavesdropping into conversations, I could hear the name of this momentous city- again and again… in fact I had been hearing the name of this city, ever since I had expressed my wish to visit the Kurdish region… the Turks detested the city… it was the epicenter of Kurdish rebellion… while Kurds sighed at its mentions… saying the Diyarbakir was so much better than crumbled Greco-Roman sights littered all over the coastal Turkey… and how Turk-dominated governments have not let Diyarbakir achieve its full tourism potential.

Anyway you looked at it… Diyarbakir was the key to understanding Kurdish problem first-hand.

While waiting for the ferry, I tried talking to some of the people… the problem was language… nearly nobody knew English… till I was approached by a bearded man… his first question- Muslim?... I gambled… Yes!.

He showed me a book… Hajj… trying to say that he had just been to Hajj… probably he was a local Maulvi… who lead his group to Hajj… Turkish Maulvis are surprisingly well-dressed, western-looking…

I looked at the book… it was a translation guide… Turkish to Arabic… I started reading the Arabic effortlessly… more effortlessly than the Maulvi… and this won the day for me… I became a sort of celebrity… people start pouring in and shaking hands with me… an Indian, who knew Arabic, must be a very religious person.

I made a few friends during this small ferry journey… but surprisingly… I could understand Kurdish more than I could understand Turkish… there was some strange similarity between Persian and Kurdish… something which I came to realize in Diyarbakir.

The ferry journey was amazingly refreshing… beautiful sceneries… migratory birds… very friendly people… a few days ago in Pamukkale, Sultan had told me… Kurdistan is beautiful… and I’d forget Turkish sights once I am there… he was not too much way off the mark.

On the other side, I saw a well-dressed man waiting for me in a car… I guessed he must be Omar-Alison Tanik’s husband, who assists her in running Nomad Tours.

Omar, too, recognized me almost instantaneously… I was the only person in the ferry who was looking different… like a tourist. A relatively black-complexioned Indian among fair complexioned Kurds.

Omar was not able to talk much in English… he put me in touch with Alison, on phone … who had chalked a perfect program for me… Omar would drive me to Diyarbakir… and leave me in the city… with some packed lunch… and then I was free to explore the city all by myself… for 4-5 hours, and thereafter Omar would meet me at a pre-decided spot, and then drive me to Alison’s house, where I can have a quick coffee before proceeding to Yuvacali village- to stay with Pero and her family… and relish Kurdish hospitality.

The drive to Diyarbakir started unfolding the complexity of Kurdish problem… all along the drive… at regular intervals; I could see Gendarmerie (paramilitary) pickets… stopping all the buses… lining people out and checking all their wares… the whole area appeared to be a war-zone… Omar tried to tell me… I have seen nothing… a few days ago… Army was manning these pickets… and now things are under control… a few kilometers ahead… I saw remains of a charred vehicle… which were torched by the Kurdish rebels… Omar explained- violence has become a never-ending cycle in this region… interrupted by brief periods of peace… where Army lets down its security apparatus and then rebels strike… leading to re-deployment of security forces… Gendarmerie, apparently, represents the peace time.

We started approaching Diyarbakir… it, strangely, at the first sight didn’t appear to be a rebel-dominated town… there were signs of development… Omar told me… the government has, off-late, started developing these areas… a lot of industries have started coming to Diyarbakir and other Kurdish towns… and the government anticipates that the Kurdish youth would get jobs and eventually the Kurdish rebellion would die a natural death. He admitted that of late Turkish government has become development oriented viz. Kurdish region, unlike in the past…

Beyond the veneer of modernity… lied the old citadel of Diyarbakir… and one look at the citadel area… and I gasped… this place is special… indeed very special…

The walls and the ramparts of the citadel were amazingly grand… announcing the historical profundity of Diyarbakir… the citadel was huge… and I could see a sea of people still residing inside the citadel… I smiled… and uttered prophetic words… Aleppo!

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty: Amidst peace and tranquility

These were the lean tourist seasons… no one was present at Nemrut… leaving the entire place to myself… winters are generally very severe in these parts of Turkey… and before reaching Nemrut, I was wondering as to whether I would be able to make it there or not… would Nemrut be snow-bound (In fact a few days after my departure from the place… heavy snow was reported in this area… I was definitely lucky)

The vantages from the summit are commanding… the hill is surrounded by Euphrates from three sides… and at a distance you can see majestic views of Euphrates… the river which harbored, arguably, the oldest civilization in the world… (Yes, the oldest… I discovered its timelessness at a place called Urfa)

I left Nemrut Dagi with a sense of fulfillment of having come here and seen it… one of the most enduring images of Turkey- along with Istanbul and Cappadocia.

It was time to drive down to other sites in the vicinity… apparently, the whole area was a Commagene empire stronghold… and therefore they constructed a number of sites all over the place… the ruins of these places are dotted everywhere in the vicinity.

The drives around the place are simply breath-taking… the vantages, the landscape are surreal… as if you have been transformed in a dream world… hills all around… covered with shiny golden grass… as if they are made up of gold… steep roads… and then a straight road… a strip of tarmac amidst the golden surrounding… for miles and miles… I was blessed to be here.

We reached to a place called Arsameia… which arguably represents the zenith of Commagene kings… a hundred years before the fall of it under King Mithradates… it served as the summer capital of the kingdom… a rock edict facing the Euphrates valley stands today- bearing testimony of the great empire… so does a statue of Mithradates shaking hands with Hercules… and besides a never-ending cave, which goes down and down… some 150 meters… I tried going inside with a small torch, but after 20 meters I started feeling claustrophobic and came back.

A few more steps atop the hills, one can find the ruins of Eski Kale… the old Arsameia fort… the dilapidated ramparts and rubbles indicate that it must have been a great fort… the views are majestic… you can see all around… views of the Euphrates Valley… perhaps that’s why this fort was impregnable… the enemies could had been sighted from miles…

It was time to move… while going back…I met a English guy traveling with her Hong Kong based girl friend… they planned to go to Nemrut in the night and try seeing the Sunrise from there… I wished them good luck…

A couple of minutes of drive ahead is the Yeni Kale… the new castle… probably erected by the Selcuks… a fine work of masonry… this fort is made up of thin bricks, held together by limestone… the works looks majestic… but lies in a dilapidated state… a villager told me… nobody comes here, not even the authorities, to maintain this place… I realized I have started seeing the Kurdish heartland… where there is a deep resentment against the government in Ankara… which is dominated by the Turks.

A little further ahead… is the Roman bridge… constructed in 2 Century AD… this bridge was constructed by Romans after the conquest of Commagene empire… in the honor of their mighty general Septimius Severus… the bridge was constructed over one of the tributaries of Euphrates… Numphaeus… and despite being 2000 year old… is in working condition… (Though heavy vehicles are not allowed on it because of preservation purposes).

I went down the bridge and touched the water of the river… touching water of a river, which has nurtured the oldest civilization of the world… Euphrates and Tigris… and the Mesopotamian Civilization… I had heard stories about Dajlah and Farrat (Euphrates and Tigris) since childhood… I felt sad that when I was in Syria in 2007… I didn’t go to Deir-Ez-Zor… where I could have seen Euphrates… but when I touched the waters of Euphrates… I felt blessed… I could feel a shiver down my spine and a tear drop in my eyes… civilizations are ephemeral… but this river would always communicate stories about those who sat by it… those who relished it… FOREVER.

It was getting darker…I had to move… we drove through the villages of the area… where school kids were returning home… I could see the idyllic life of the villages… many a times... I wondered if I could just stay in these charming vistas a wee bit more… but knew I had to move… tomorrow to Diyarbakir… the headquarters of Kurdish militancy… many had deterred me from going there… they told me that Diyarbakir is a dangerous city… any time… but more so, these days, when Kurdish riots have broke out all over the place.

A day ago, I spoke to Alison Tanik… who runs Nomad Tours in Urfa and adjoining areas… and arranges for village homestays in Kurdish Villages… she offered me to pick me up from Kahta-Diyarbakir Ferry Point (there used to be a bridge on Euphrates, on the road connecting Kahta to Diyarbakir, however, it got destroyed by a flooding and now… people use ferries to cross this stretch of Euphrates)… she told me that I can see Diyarbakir and then in the evening stay at Village... and enjoy the Kurdish hospitality… all for 75 dollars… it sounded nice… Aly agreed to drop me at Ferry point in the morning so that I can take the very first ferry across Euphrates.

I came back to Karadut Pension at around 5 pm… it was already dark… Aly told me that dinner would be ready by 7 and I can take a walk around the village… I was waiting for this hour…

Amidst the prayer calls… small kids saying money money… people winding up their daily chores… and a burbling brook… the walk was heavenly… serene… words were not enough to capture… I looked around, the sun had set… there was an orangish hue to the sky… I started missing my family… I wondered how much my sons would have relished this serenity… how romantic would holding hands of my wife been in these heavenly surrounding.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Nineteen: Ephemeral Humans and Long-lasting cultures

Momo is a staple diet in Tibetan culture… I love them… and so does my wife.

When I came to Afghanistan, I discovered something called Manto… which is more famous in Hazarajat (Bamiyan and adjoining areas) as well as the northern parts (among the Tajiks and Uzbeks)… it is less popular in Pashtoon areas, though. Manto is a close variant of Momo, served with minted Yoghurt and cream- it is delicious… it was a serendipity discovering a Momo’s variant in Afghanistan.

I argued that perhaps it’s a cross cultural thing… The Central Asian and Tibetan culture met at Kashgar in Xinjiang… and a lot of cross-cultural exchanges must have occurred over there… some of them must have entered Afghanistan from Kashgar. (A similar variant is found in Central Asia as Sambousek, and is a pre-cursor to North Indian fast-food known as Samosa… in fact the first time when I was introduced to Momo… I was told it is a Chicken Samosa)

When I landed at Kayseri… I found a shop selling a similar such thing in Turkey… called Manti… it was an amazing cross culture discovery… culture- in form of languages and food- has an amazing ability to diffuse… the study of cultures and their similarities can be a great source of learning about common human heritage…

A few days ago, I was talking to a senior diplomat, who had been in Brazil a few days ago… he told me that Brazilians call shirts as Qamees… and wondered how a far-off land could have a similar word for shirts as South Asia… I pointed out… he has missed a point… Cultural diffusion!!!

Qamees is an Arabic word… and Arabs ruled Andalusia for ages… Spanish developed as a bridge language between Arabs and Europe… and borrowed heavily from Arabic (at least the common nouns)… and then Spanish moved to South America… these words must have travelled with the Spanish to Brazil… like it did travel with Arabs to South Asia.

The bus journey from Kayseri to Kahta was eventless… I arrived at Kahta in the early morning. But I had to go even farther to Nemrut Dagi.

A day ago, I made a call to Karadut Pension in Karadut village … Kahta, Adiyaman, Karadut- all these places are in the vicinity of Nemrut Dagi… Karadut is the closest inhabitation that one can get to while approaching Nemrut… I told the Karadut person to pick me up from Kahta Bus Stand… and drive me to Nemrut… he offered me stay in his pension, drive up to Nemrut and some local sight-seeing for 100 dollars… he also offered me to drop at Euphrates crossing from where I can go to Diyarbakir. The offer sounded nice.

The Karadut person (let’s call him Aly, though I have forgotten his name) picked me up from Kahta Bus stand and drove me to his Pension… and served me some frugal breakfast… he asked me at what time I would like to go to Nemrut… I told him that I would prefer sunset… I was told that around sunset time… the Western ruins of Nemrut acquire an orange hue, which adds to their solitude and mystery.

I took a quick shower and went to sleep… and slept for few hours in order to recharge myself… the last night was sleepless… the bus started at 11:45 pm and landed me in Kahta at 5 am- not giving me any time for sound sleep. Moreover, I realized that the ticket that I had bought in Goreme was a wee bit expensive and I would have been better off if I would had traveled to Kayseri and then bought ticket directly from Kayseri Company…. That also hung heavy on my mind.

I was woken up by Aly at around 12 noon… he told me that its getting cloudy and therefore I may not be able to see the Sunset at Nemrut… he told me that I would be better off if I make it to Nemrut now… as it would give me some time to see other sites around the place. I looked out… the weather was ominous…I bought into his argument and nodded…

We set out for Nemrut right after… and reached there in about half an hour… in the mid-way, I saw a place called Cesme Pension… about 3 kilometers from Nemrut… I gathered that I could have reached even closer to Nemrut by staying at Cesme… and could have walked up to Nemrut Dagi from there… Karadut, incidentally, was about 6 kilometers away from Nemrut… as compared to Cesme’s 3 kilometers.

Dagi… literally means hill… and Nemrut Dagi is located no-where… amidst rolling hills standing majestic as the tallest peak in the vicinity… it wouldn’t have been any better than other hillocks in the vicinity but for its commanding position from where one can get panoramic views of the mighty Euphrates… and probably this is the reason why, almost 2000 years ago) the mighty Commagene king (landmass between the Caspian and Black Sea, between the Roman and Parthian empires) Antichous chose this site to construct his giant statues… one in the East terrace and other in the West (as a depiction that he oversaw the East and the West and therefore ruled the entire world)… Antichous constructed his giant statues among the statues of Hercules, Apollo, Zeus and Commagene Goddess… indicating that he, himself, was a God.

Antichous reign did not last very long… after 26 years, within a few years of his death the Commagene empire became a part of Roman empire… his mighty project- the Nemrut Dagi- which announced his stature as God… was forgotten… and then destroyed by an earthquake… the head of Antichous fell on earth… and the place became further oblivious due to frequent dust storms in the region… his mighty memorial got buried under the dust… only to be discovered in modern times… accidentally.

It was initially believed that the place was associated with the biblical king Nemrod who used to kill his enemies and turn their heads into stone and place them atop a mound as a warning to his enemies… thus the place started being called Nemrut Dagi….

The Nemrut statues, today stand enigmatically… perhaps depicting the ephemeral nature of humans… and their kings.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Eighteen: Cappadocia by dusk!

The couple’s name were Nabil and Rasha… they were from Alexandria… where Nabil worked as a Doctor.

It was nice talking to them… they had got married, recently and were on a honeymoon. They had taken a different route to Cappadocia… going to Canakkale, Troy… then to Ankara and then to Cappadocia. They said that I shouldn’t miss Canakkale… I smiled and thought aloud- some other time. I knew I have missed a number of jewels in Turkey… my idea was to cover as many different zones in Turkey as possible- breadth of experience than depth- that, perhaps has been my talisman while traveling… I don’t stay at any place for more than a day… moving constantly… that helps me in covering higher number of places… the depth, I make up for it by reading thereafter.

The Ilhara Valley trek is magical… it makes you stop from time to time… stop, look around and relish the ethereal beauty of the place… the burbling brook- which resonates with your thoughts and amplifies them… giving you a vista to think upon… or the woods which give you solace… or the grottos all around… suggesting you of human possibilities…

I befriended the Iranian couple and the Malaysian guy… while on the trek… the Malaysian, I noticed, had an excellent understanding of photo-ops… he told me to take pictures here and there… and all of them turned out to be extremely well done. Nevertheless, the two of us couldn’t communicate more than that- due to language problems… it actually amazes me… as to how Chinese or Malays or Koreans or Japanese… travel so much… with little knowledge of English or French… the global languages. And yet they do, they are open to so much of international experience. We Indians, sadly, don’t open up to such experiences.

The trek lasted almost an hour… within which we completed about 4 kilometers… it ended at a place called Belisirima. There, on the edge of the river was a small Restaurant- where we were supposed to have our lunch… the restaurant had created seating arrangements wooden canopies by the river… and a few on small man-made islets amidst the river… I chose the islet… the whole environment was magical… the taste of bread, amidst these environs, was mellower… more subtle.

It was time to move… to Selimiye Monastery- a beautiful, rock-cut monastery- which was the epicenter of religion in entire Cappadocia region… Esraa told me that Cappadocia was an important center for Orthodox Christianity Monasticism… and Christian monks from different parts of world… and of different denomination came to Selimiye.

Selimiye was a great place to visit… it was getting darker and perched atop at a height in Selimiye, we could see the silhouettes of Cappadocia panorama. A mosque here… a village there… an abundant Greek church… and hilly surrounding. Selimiye was a great vantage point…

It had a wonderful defense and a great line of sight… which alerted the monks in the monastery even when enemies were afar… the monks used to climb to higher altitude or could fight back- taking advantage of their heights… the cathedral of Selimiye was equally magical… with frescoes- that time has ravaged… slots for books and scrolls…

We were supposed to move to Pigeon Valley panorama from here on… Cappadocian used to rear pigeons in large numbers- they were a good source of meat, and their droppings were great manure… although, Esraa told us, pigeons were plentiful everywhere in Cappadocia… they were astonishingly abundant in the Pigeon Valley… where Cappadocians had made special shelters. Pigeon Valley trek is by itself a stand-alone trek and primary fixture when one is in Cappadocia.

Near the Pigeon Valley panorama was a Onyx Showroom. Onyx is a special stone, which is found abundantly in Cappadocia… and Onyx jewellery has become a sort of cottage industry over here… I was least interested in it… I sat on a bench seeing the wonderful pigeon valley… and wondering… if I could stay in Cappadocia for one more day… I was supposed to leave today… by 8 pm bus to Kayseri and thereafter at 11 pm to Kahta… my whirlwind touring didn’t spare me enough time for Cappadocia… which had much-much more to offer. Nearby someone had created a tree of evil-eyes… Turkish evil-eye (a shining blue round pendant like thing) has assumed global recognition… it is present everywhere… in India, in Egypt, in Jordan, Syria… in the time of dusk… with little light… the evil eye tree looked extremely beautiful and magical…

I was joined by the Tamil gentleman… we started talking… he was originally from Rameshwaram… a Tamil Brahmin… bitter about the treatment given to his community in India… he didn’t long to go back… and found himself comfortable in the West… most of the people I met over here in Cappadocia… were flying back to Istanbul… Cappadocia, for them is the farthest east one comes to travel in Turkey.

I got back to my hotel at around 7… and was packing the wares… when the hotel owner came to clear the bill… he asked me where I am headed after Kahta or Nemrut… I told him to wild South-East… but do not have any plans… any reservations… he said- I like your attitude… you are a true traveler… these words sounded sweet to me.

The bus to Kayseri was late… I had to wait in a small Bus company kiosk for about an hour… it was getting chilly day by day… and days were getting shorter… I was hungry… I wondered if I would have enough time to catch up with a dinner in Kayseri…

I reached Kayseri at around 10.30 pm… I still had about half an hour for my bus… Kayseri bus stand was well organized- so I didn’t have any problem in locating my bus terminal and the bus company…

I rushed for a quick dinner… and came across something unusual… something recognizable… a steamed dough… filled with meat and potato… called Manti…

Time for some more cultural revelations.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Seventeen: On Greeks and Turks, and on Humans

While moving towards Derinkuyu underground city from Goreme Panorama point, we came across a tri-junction… to go to Derinkuyu, we were supposed to move left… the right side road went to Aksaray… and in-front I could see a beautiful vantage of Mount Hassan.

It was cloudy, and the sun was peeping through the clouds every now and then… blessing Mount Hassan with its benevolent rays… it was an ethereal sight… I asked Esraa, if we could stop and I can take a few photographs… she stopped the vehicle… told me that Mount Hassan was less than 3 kilometers from the spot… and in summer-time, one can actually hike all the way up… in a three day trek.

While clicking Mount Hassan and hide-and-seek playing sun… I realized why our forefathers worshipped Sun… the ancient civilizations were mesmerized by Sun… which bestowed them with life… the Egyptian, the Aryans, the Pagans… all worshipped Sun. Today, when we have learnt all the mysteries of it, we find it common-place, in the same league (or the bottom of it) as millions of stars all over the universe… but before these mysteries were solved, Sun had God-like proportions.

When I came out of Derinkuyu, I saw a desolate Greek Orthodox standing forlorn at a distance… I asked Esraa if she could wait for a while… till I check out that church… she said OK… I ran towards the Chruch, wondering if I can take a look inside it… the gate was locked… and it appeared that no one used the place any more, not even open it for maintenance purposes.

Nearby, I saw an old man sitting on a chair, under a tree… I beckoned him and pointed towards the church… wondering if I can go inside… he said something in Turkish and then waived his hands… as if he was saying no-body opens it anymore. He must have been in his early 80s… his wrinkles told me that he has witnessed the harrowing events of Greek-Turkish population exchange when he was an infant.

Greek and Turks used to live in the areas of Turkey and Greek Islands… all over the Agean Sea (as also some parts of mainland Greece) for centuries, together… there were, at times, minor tensions between the two- but never reached a flash-point… however, a few years after the humiliating defeat of Turkey in First World War and rise of Turkish nationalism… tensions between the two communities started rising… leading to the Greek-Turkish war from 1919 to 1922. Greece, left in a lurch by its European allies, succumbed to a humiliating defeat and a treaty was signed between the two parties… which led to a massive population transfer of Greeks in Turkey and Turks in Greece… largely on the basis of religion…

This was one of the first massive population exchange in the world… the biggest of them was in India and Pakistan in 1947. It is a numbing feeling.

A few years ago, while I was in Cyprus… I went to Northern Cyprus for a day with a Greek driver… he took me to a small village and told me that he was born over here… until the war between the Greeks and Turks forced him to leave North Cyprus and migrate to South. There are millions such stories in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh… and many other places… we still live in a world… where religion defines person’s identity and acceptability… and I fear, that this phenomena is not receding but in on the rise.

Our next stop was Ilhara Valley, while going towards it we came across a number of small Cappadocian villages… perhaps, Esraa could read the rumblings inside me, she pointed out a number of dilapidated and deserted churches… she told that in Cappadocia, a vibrant Greek Orthodox community used to live… replaced, all by Turks- including herself… she lamented that though we show people this place like it belonged to our ancestors… the truth is that the heirs of this place are long gone… Turks after all came in Turkey only in medieval ages…

I asked if she feels that the population exchange was futile… she said she was not sure… but almost prophetically said- people would have found some other reasons to fight… how true! The basic bond between humans is that of faith and respect… and when that is gone- issues crop up… issues are symptoms… you solve one, other would crop up… almost unendingly…

We reached Ilhara Valley at around 12… Ilhara is a river gorge… along the cliffs of the gorge; the early Christians made dwelling caves… Cappadocia was a dry place… and the effort was to somehow live near water sources… whatever be the discomforts… Esraa told us- that Ilhara Valley trek is almost 12 kilometers long… but that we would do only do a 4 kilometer stretch till Belisirma… and there, amidst the surrounding, would be treated with a sumptuous lunch.

One needs to go down and down the staircase to the bottom of the valley to start the trek… on my way down; I came across a few cave churches… with beautiful frescoes… still very evident after thousands of years. Esraa told me that these colorful frescoes were made with natural dyes… human-consciousness always had one language…Egypt, India or Turkey… our forefathers used similar elements to express themselves… even the language- people use the same syntax… a noun a verb to express their basic thoughts… a verse in Quran mentions- that God taught human being the names… indicating that the language of humans has always been the same… the sounds differ, the language doesn’t.

Ilhara is a magical place… you trek along a river… a mountain brook… among the woods… and occasionally you lift your head and look at the edges of the cliff- a cave here and a church there… wondering how could our forefathers make a dwelling place in such difficult areas… I was mesmerized by the beauty of the place… and started remembering the beautiful treks of the yesteryears, in the Himalayas…

I promised that I would come again to this place… and trek all of 12 kilometers… and may other treks, which have been left untreaded this time on.

My thoughts were broken by a call… “ Izzayak”… I looked around and saw the same Egyptian couple that I had met at Haga Sofia in Istanbul a few days ago.

Musings from Anatolia, Part Four: Coping with Turkish Language

Turks are proud people… they are proud about their legacy, their culture and their language.

Though more and more Turks are learning new languages- English, German, French and Italian… anticipating an eventual invitation into the European Union… as also Arabic due to religious reasons (and two being the divergent stresses which Turkish society, at large, is facing today… one looking towards West… and other looking towards religion); it is nevertheless sensible to pick up a few Turkish phrases while traveling in Turkey.

When I was planning for a Turkey trip… I checked out from various sources… if my bit of Arabic, Persian, English and wee bit of French would be able to rescue me in Turkey… responses were confused, and prejudiced…

Some told me that Turks hate Arabs and Arabic speakers… he was partially right… they do see Arabs with contempt… but have tremendous respect for Arabic… so when they saw a non-Arab speaking Arabic, they treated me with respect… almost assuming that I must be a Muslim… and that too a devout Muslim to have learnt Arabic for reciting and understanding Quran. In fact, there were places and situations, where I fended for myself only by speaking Arabic- like in Mardin and Sanliurfa, which are less than few kilometers from Syrian border and have huge Syrian influence.

Some other told me that Persian is very little understood in Turkey… and though it has some similarity with Kurdish, but hardly much to sail me through… they were wrong… Kurdish language, as somebody told me in Diyarbakir, has a number of dialects- the major of them are Kurmanji and Sorani… Kurmanji is spoken in Turkey, northern Iran, and Syria… while Sorani and its sister dialect Kermanshahi in southern Iran and Iraq…. All the dialects have varying influence of Persian… Kurdish being an Indo-Iranian language… however, despite being the lingua-franca of Turkish Kurds… Kurmanji is most close to Persian- Why? It is perhaps the legacy of past.

And the past is a relatively obscure religion called Yazidi… a proto-Islamic cult, which was declared heretic because of its syncretism, and belief on Malik Tawus (who in Christianity and Islam is considered the Satan)… trying to adopt lot of local Kurdish, Sufi beliefs, pagan beliefs and even early Christianity and Zoroastrian beliefs within its fold… Yazidis share a lot of beliefs with Islam… but then they were declared heretics, devil-worshippers and persecuted for centuries together… most of them converted to Islam… some still exist… in Iran passing themselves as Zoroastrian or Muslim.

Most of the Yazidis were Kurds... and their book of revelation was written in Kurmanji Kurdish… which maintains its purity till date and is spoken by Turkish Kurds… incidentally Kurmanji was very akin to Pahlavi (an earlier variant of Persian, it is often said that Kurmanji is closer to Pahlavi than Persian is).

So, when I tried talking to people in Persian… I was able to make them understand my point and understand their point… quite a bit… Kurds were happy talking to me … realizing that I am speaking something which is distantly Kurdish… and different from Arabic or Turkish. In fact in places like Diyarbakir, I was comfortable speaking Persian… Persian is also well understood in Dogubayazit… probably due to proximity to Iran.

Nevertheless, in West Turkey… I felt acute need to speak in Turkish… even before reaching to Turkey, I tried a few websites to learn phrases in Turkey… one of them Turkey Travel Planner was an excellent website… which gave a list of hundreds of Turkish phrases that I might find necessary to know… but a hundred phrase was too much to learn… I gave up… arguing that I would pick up a wee bit of Turkish on the way.

I was right… as soon as I left Istanbul… I confronted people who didn’t know English… touristy places like Selcuk, Pamukkale and Cappadocia were manageable… because I was directed to people who knew English, and there were many…. But Konya, Kahta, and south-east Turkey were rather difficult. Need was the mother… and I picked up few words here and there…

• Merhaba is a greeting (akin to Persian)…
• Gunayadin is “Good Morning”…
• Nerede is where (thus if one has to ask “where ABC Pension is”, you say “ABC Pansiyoon Nerede”)….
• Goodbye is Iyi akshamlar…
• Please is Lutfen (akin to Persian)…
• Evet/Hayir are Yes and No…
• Teshekkur is Thanks (akin to Persian)…
• Nasilineez is “How are you”…
• Iyiyim is “I am fine”…
• Kach para is “How much” (so if you have to ask how much is this for … ask (by indicating that thing) Kach Para)…
• Water is Su
• Gozel is Beautiful.

A few discoveries… due to Turkish influence in Arab world- especially on Egypt- a large number of nouns are same in Egyptian Colloquial and Arabic… words like Oda (room), Fehendim (a mark of respect, like Mr.), Bey (a beckon to anybody)… Duktoor (Doctor), Otobus (bus), Taman (OK)

Another one… Turkish colloquial has a high French influence… if you are confronted with an English word… and speak it with French gentleness (no teethal sound… soft pronunciation and ending with a long vowel)… you might be understood well…

I coped with these pointers in Turkey… anyone would.

And last pointer… both Turks and Kurds are very affable people… they would go out of their way to help you… and if you can’t speak anyone of the above… they would find an English speaker, somehow, to help you… so Relax!!!