Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Thirty: A tear drop on the cheek of time

Tajmahal is often referred to as… a tear drop on the cheek of time… depicting the pathos that lay beneath the beauty of Tajmahal… of love… of death… of defeat.

A teardrop on the cheek of time… I couldn’t have conjured up words more beautiful than these… for Hassankeyf- an ancient city made by Romans on the bank of River Tigris… it remained a small fort under them… changed hands to Arabs… to Artuqid Turks (one of the predecessors of Seljuks) and finally to Ayyubids.

Under Artuqids and Ayyubids… the small Roman fortress town flourished into a significantly big town… where traders used to come… the Ayyubids constructed a bridge over river Tigris… providing an alternative to already established silk routes… and for 100 years or so… the town saw its heydays… which did not last a long time. A Mongol invasion happened… which destroyed and razed the town completely… the bridge was broken… and then the town was lost into oblivion… kept changing hands from one to another… and finally rested with the Ottomans.

I have often wondered…why Mongols were so ruthless in their pursuits… destroying towns after towns… so cruelly that it was totally decimated, never to rise again.

Mongols perhaps were the first empire that used terror as political tactics… they were a tribal confederation… many tribes coming together (and that explains that they were never far-seeing and into empire building)… they merely wanted submission and booties… and for that they waged wars. But if we carefully careen through their history we would realize that they didn’t engage in as many wars as they are imagined to have had. They conquered swathes of kingdoms by sheer fear… kings after kings just laid prostrate once they heard Mongols were coming… and those who didn’t... had to pay a price with extreme form of plunder and massacre… that instilled fear and terror in the hearts of others.

One may look at their tactics with disgust… or may just look it as just another political tactics… after all, many others have used terror as tactics over limited time period and geographical space… like Hitler, Stalin, and more recently Milosevic … what differentiates Mongols is perhaps the amount of time they terrorized the world and the geographical expanse of their conquests…

Hassankeyf is marked by orange-hued hills on one side of the Tigris… and plains on the other… on top of one such hill lies the mighty citadel of Tigris… it was this marvelous position that must have inspired a garrison town in the yester-years… the Tigris meanders idyllically through the town… and upon one such bend… the Ayyubids once constructed a bridge… known as Roman bridge… it is said that initially a mud-brick bridge was there built by Romans… which gave way to a bigger and grander bridge by Ayyubids… today only the pillars of the bridge remain… marking the grandeur of the yester-years.

Adjacent to the new bridge, which connects Hassankeyf to the rest of the world, is a small inn… ambitiously called Hassankeyf hotel. It is very basic… all rooms having shared toilets… but all rooms have a balcony that over look the Tigris… and just for this sheer reason, one relishes staying over here.

I checked into a room… and found out that a Turk couple was staying in the room beside mine. I exchanged some casual greetings with him… he was Selim … a Kurdish photographer… with a Turk wife… we went together for a quick early dinner, where we spoke yet again about the Kurdish problem… Selim – a Kurd with a Turk wife… is no longer an exception… there are a lot of inter-marriages happening… and that, Selim thought, was the solution… the end of separate Kurdish identity and Turkish identity… which creates divisions.

We separated ways after that… Selim wanted to check out the citadel… whereas I wanted to go on the other side of the bridge… the plains side and check a few buildings here and there… some old dilapidated mosque… the ruins of the old bridge… and the banks of River Tigris…

The cliff side is the more interesting side though… dotted with citadel… and man-made caves on the cliff… and you get a beautiful panoramic view of the cliff side from the plain side… which is dotted with some interesting ruins… a grand mosque… and a madarassa… it appears that under Ayyubids… the town was much more than a small outpost… it went on to become a major learning center… something similar, if not comparable to Mardin (though Mardin developed much after Hassankeyf)…

After seeing it… I walked along the banks of Tigris… and saw a father son duo catching fish in an interesting way. They tied a small net in a pouch like shape to a string… dropping it in the water… letting it flow with the current and then when a fish entered it and was not able to go out through net… they felt a jerk and that is when they pulled it back slowly at first and then rapidly… I took their photograph… and they taught me this technique in return… and I could actually catch a fish using this technique, which seemed quite simple…

It was dusk… and dark… I came back to my hotel… asked for a net café… and was guided to a small little café… there were a few youngsters whiling there time over there… I went in to find a really friendly crowd… they surrounded me… checked my photographs… and offered me tea… and when I was done surfing… the owner didn’t take any money from me… he took me to his brother’s restaurant… and offered me a dinner.

It was not everyday that they saw a person coming from distant lands in Hassankeyf… the town may be dying but till it lives… they wanted that the traditions and reminiscence of the town lives in wandering hearts.

I came back to my hotel… the hotel owner… a very friendly person… helped me in drawing my further itinerary… I wanted to go to Van… and he told me that there is a 11 am bus to Van from Hassankeyf… he asked me to wake up at 5 am… do the site-seeing and get ready for that bus.

Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Twenty Nine: Reaching Hassankeyf

But first thing first… I was very hungry… an early bus from Urfa, followed by a trip to Saffron Monastery… all on empty stomach.

When I travel… I keep some money on my out-pocket for incidental expense and some in the inner pocket in my boxer shorts. I spend from the out-pocket and when the money in it dwindles, I take out another small portion from my inner pocket to replace it. This way… I ensure that my money always remain secure… but a sine-qua-non of this practice in finding a toilet or confined area to do just that…

When I reached out for my pocket… to get some money to eat… I realized that I had precisely 2 Liras left… and I was amidst the hurly burly of market… so no chance of reaching out to my inner pocket for rescue.

I have come across such situation earlier too… and have realized that such situations make me innovate… reach out to untried things… like it did that day… I saw round ring shaped dough… on sale… for 0.50 Lira… called Simit… sprinkled with a heavy dose of white sesame seeds, they looked inviting… and I decided that today my frugal lunch would be done with it. I had two of them...

Satisfied with the frugal but tasty lunch… I ventured on the streets of Mardin. The streets of Mardin are magical… the more you travel on them… more you feel like lost in the maze of Arabian nights… a mosque here… a madarassa there… an old crumbling house… a caravanserai… a few playing children… a housewife… callously drying her recently washed clothes… dressed in Arabian gown… displaying the contours of her voluptuous body.

Mardin, I opine, is worth more than a few hours stay… it is a gem, uncut… like most of the places in Kurdish areas… lost in the maze of a political strife. Very few venture out here… very few stay back… and very few relish its tempting beauty… lying at the cross roads of Arab, Turk and Kurd identity… it waits for weary travelers, who would come and uncover the momentous history behind its dreary and mundane exteriors.

It was time to say good bye to this lovely little town… which has lived its historical utility and now awaits salvation from an un-needed and un-heeded existence amidst the modern socio-political realities.

It started drizzling… when I was walking back… I saw two very pretty school girls walking down the street… dressed in lovely colorful poncho… I smiled at them and they smiled back… I showed them my camera and gestured if I could take their photos… and they were so happy to get clicked… while going back they offered me a candy… Mardin has one specialty… lest I forget… It is famous for its sugar candies called leblebie or almond candies... the road-side shops sell them… Alas I had just 1 Lira in my out pocket and could not buy those candies.

I boarded the bus… it was a rickety… most of the buses in this part of Turkey are far cry from their smart cousins in Coastal Turkey… these buses depicted a story of neglect…

Strangely but expectedly… most of the bus-mates spoke Arabic… it was time when I realized that the Turkish and Kurdish veneer is just that… a veneer… Mardin is a predominantly Arab town… a frontier town… which has more in common with Syria than with Turkey… more Arab than Urfa, which has acquired a certain degree of cosmopolitanism over the years given its size and importance.

I was off to Hassankeyf… a few kilometers ahead I saw Midyat… it seemed that I have entered some portal and sucked into a small European parish… full of life… fashion… and gaiety… it was one of the last frontiers of Syrian Orthodox church in Turkey… I remembered someone telling me… the Syrian minority is a lost case… nobody talks about them anymore… they are forgotten amidst the big fight between the Turks and the Kurds… and Syrian Christians… actually don’t mind it… they have a fairly recent history of being targeted… the stories of atrocities reverberate in their communal anecdotes… if they remain invisible… the history might not get repeated.

Midyat is also home to some very interesting monasteries… the most famous of them is Mor Gabriel Monastery… which faces an uphill land dispute… encroachments from nearby Muslims…. It has seen a lot of litigation and support from European Union… People told me… it was a beautiful monastery… but alas… I had a journey to make… I had to reach Hassankeyf… which, according to some, was an epitome of poignancy… a whole town going to get submerged once the dam on Tigris comes up… drown along with its heritage, history and hopes.

Hassankeyf is a small… a very small town by the river Tigris… it wasn’t always like this… once, a few years ago, it was a vibrant trading town… but slowly the hydro-electric project came up… and population displacement started… now most of them are gone… a few remain just to keep the town functional… ten years from now… they too would be gone… and the town would be submerged forever.

Before seeing Hassankeyf… I was vociferously against the post-modernists who challenged high dams on grounds of saving indigenous population… a few tribals by the bank of Narmada… why should they hold a totem of development at ransom… Why indeed… I got my answers when I saw Hassankeyf…

Every small piece of land holds a heritage… and its gone forever when societies take selfish steps… I remember a Chinese diplomat defending Three Gorges… so what if we lose some of out historical legacies… we have plenty more… a loss of few doesn’t make a difference… it does… something unique is lost forever… when we had options of not losing it. It pains.

I alighted at the bus stop… the bus driver pointed out a small inn… that is the only option for travelers like me who venture in these unchartered areas.
I started walking towards the only hotel therein … Hotel Hassankeyf

Reviving the Blog

My last blog post was in October or November last year… after that I didn’t bother to post another blog…

Why? Someone asked…

I had time… and topics to write… I am still to finish my blog series on Anatolia… and start the blog series on Persia… and have the main pointers for content ready… then why didn’t I write.

There were, I guess, some internal factors and some external.

Firstly the external factors… I started blogging as a tool of self expression… it was a time, when blogging as an activity was raging on. Everybody had a blog of his or her own… and I thought I should also have a blog… so I did get one for myself as well.

Eventually I discovered that I can communicate my travel experience with the help of blogging and therefore started writing about my travels… it was a great experience… writing made me observe more… and the more I observed… the more pointers did I get to write.

But there was a change happening on the internet… called Twitter. Suddenly I saw the advent of what is called – micro-blogging… it changed the world of blogging… and most of the people who were into the former… moved to latter. From Blogging to Twittering.

There was another phenomenon which happened… Social Media… I had a Facebook account… and I started pasting my travel photos on that… and could write a running commentary about my travel with the help of photos and small commentary ala tweets. I thought that I was able to communicate about my travels through it. And I really was… but only to my FB friends, some of whom interested… and some not really interested.

The internal changes were about getting emotionally busy… I stopped writing blog in October/November… when my departure from Kandahar was imminent… and I developed a kind of fear… I wished that the last phase of my stay passes away peacefully… it was a very very strange phase… the large part of my journey was over… and only few days remained. Then, I came to India met my family… and tried to catch up with my kids… something that I had missed terribly. And then was the time to pack my wares and move to Saudi Arabia along with my family. The whole sequence of events left me emotionally void of any urge to write a blog.

But then in last few days… I have restarted feeling the urge to write… to connect with people… to connect with myself… and therefore, in days to come I would revive my blog for another stint…

Wish me luck…