(but i do miss bicycles)
konya has two redeeming features and they have both been dead for more than seven centuries: the tombs of Mevlana Cel'alledin Rumi and his spiritual teacher, Shems'i Tebriz. there's no ocean, no pubs, no rock and roll, no freaks like me. and yet of the innumberable cities i have visited in the last three months it was the first place that felt like home. why is that?
let me backtrack.
i arrived two days before the festival and spent them walking, finding a nice enough student caf with some live saz action and watching fenerbahce beat man utd (always a joy to watch the red and white go down). went and visited the aforementioned dead guys. meditated. emoted. okay, i thought, pilgrimage over. i reluctantly bought a ticket for the big corporate sponsored sema and promptly ran out of cash. surprise! fortunately some lovely people came to my rescue over here and over in ausland (thanks folks). i managed a stay in a hotel i'd never be able to afford otherwise (my first minibar in an islamic country, alkol yok - what a waste), on the pleasure of the municipality of konya.
mevlana is big business. or it's trying to be. the sufi order is technically illegal (thanks attaturk) and the fest is pegged as a cultural thing. the streets were hung with banners of rumi's poems in turkish, neon dervishes, and (my personal favourite) a dervish of purple and white kale on the median strip. i'm sure i am supposed to feel resentful but the poet in me is kinda stoked that the beauty of his work survives all this shit.
the sema was held in a building so new they were still putting the roof on between performances. it's a monstrous glass and concrete thing which looms pointily at the slums across the street, whose residents flog plastic dervishes to the busloads of turkish pilgrim/tourists. the rumi quote they've chosen as their slogan is 'either seem as you are or be as you seem', which comes across a bit unapologetic, really. the prime minister was there along with thirty fluttering bodyguards and the performance was preceded by a terrible lounge singer. the whirling itself was quite impressive, though it was a cold imitation of a ceremony meant to induce ecstasy done by a group of professional dancers from istanbul. i can't complain, i mean i've known some lovely professional dancers in my time, though not of the sort of which allah would approve.
the rest of the week was one long conversation about god. i am still not convinced, but remain honoured by the serendipity of my anatolian oasis. i met people from all over the world and prayed (to the empty space where god might once have been before she died and left us to it), went to a mercan dede concert in the hilton sponsored by a cigarette company - the bellboys danced between clearing ashtrays - and chanted along with the paganesque trance of the iranians, who held crazy allah jam sessions everywhere they could to the chagrin of some more conservative local sufi fans. i learned the steps of the whirling dervish dance in an office basement, was offered two jobs and a house, found a couple of translators, and was proposed to1.
it was hard to leave konya. not cause i was having fun exactly but because i was waiting to see what else it was gonna do to my head. but there was too much god and not enough dancing and my inner cynic won out. i could live in konya but my life would have to change too much and i'm not ready for that. anyway i know i will be back, if only from the curiosity that is supposed to kill me one day.
the funny thing about pilgrimages is that when they're over you have nothing to do. so i am back to travel for its own sake, a worthy enough cause and one of which the sufis were quite fond anyway. there is a bit in the koran about taking care of the wayfarer - the root of hospitality is a watching god - and i guess someone's got to fill those walking shoes.
so for the time being i reside in a sleepy fishing town populated by empty hotels and geese and an unlikely number of black cats who contrive to cross my path with comforting regularity. there are some nice mountains and some shit weather which deprives me of climbing very far. there is a massive freshwater lake of cloudy turquoise. there is sweet f/a to do. i am an html monkey for my keep. its funny to be back with the small tortures of microsoft frontrage, let's see how long i can stand it.
i'm hoping to be back in the eu in a week or two where i can work for actual money, but my plans are like a turkish construction site; they tend to fall apart before they're finished. from the window i can see some examples - they've hacked out a bit of the mountain to make room for some pastel tower blocks. i'm waiting for the landslide...
1. Not unusual in a nation of people who fall in love in minutes, fortunately i don't suffer from the same curse.
konya has two redeeming features and they have both been dead for more than seven centuries: the tombs of Mevlana Cel'alledin Rumi and his spiritual teacher, Shems'i Tebriz. there's no ocean, no pubs, no rock and roll, no freaks like me. and yet of the innumberable cities i have visited in the last three months it was the first place that felt like home. why is that?
let me backtrack.
i arrived two days before the festival and spent them walking, finding a nice enough student caf with some live saz action and watching fenerbahce beat man utd (always a joy to watch the red and white go down). went and visited the aforementioned dead guys. meditated. emoted. okay, i thought, pilgrimage over. i reluctantly bought a ticket for the big corporate sponsored sema and promptly ran out of cash. surprise! fortunately some lovely people came to my rescue over here and over in ausland (thanks folks). i managed a stay in a hotel i'd never be able to afford otherwise (my first minibar in an islamic country, alkol yok - what a waste), on the pleasure of the municipality of konya.
mevlana is big business. or it's trying to be. the sufi order is technically illegal (thanks attaturk) and the fest is pegged as a cultural thing. the streets were hung with banners of rumi's poems in turkish, neon dervishes, and (my personal favourite) a dervish of purple and white kale on the median strip. i'm sure i am supposed to feel resentful but the poet in me is kinda stoked that the beauty of his work survives all this shit.
the sema was held in a building so new they were still putting the roof on between performances. it's a monstrous glass and concrete thing which looms pointily at the slums across the street, whose residents flog plastic dervishes to the busloads of turkish pilgrim/tourists. the rumi quote they've chosen as their slogan is 'either seem as you are or be as you seem', which comes across a bit unapologetic, really. the prime minister was there along with thirty fluttering bodyguards and the performance was preceded by a terrible lounge singer. the whirling itself was quite impressive, though it was a cold imitation of a ceremony meant to induce ecstasy done by a group of professional dancers from istanbul. i can't complain, i mean i've known some lovely professional dancers in my time, though not of the sort of which allah would approve.
the rest of the week was one long conversation about god. i am still not convinced, but remain honoured by the serendipity of my anatolian oasis. i met people from all over the world and prayed (to the empty space where god might once have been before she died and left us to it), went to a mercan dede concert in the hilton sponsored by a cigarette company - the bellboys danced between clearing ashtrays - and chanted along with the paganesque trance of the iranians, who held crazy allah jam sessions everywhere they could to the chagrin of some more conservative local sufi fans. i learned the steps of the whirling dervish dance in an office basement, was offered two jobs and a house, found a couple of translators, and was proposed to1.
it was hard to leave konya. not cause i was having fun exactly but because i was waiting to see what else it was gonna do to my head. but there was too much god and not enough dancing and my inner cynic won out. i could live in konya but my life would have to change too much and i'm not ready for that. anyway i know i will be back, if only from the curiosity that is supposed to kill me one day.
the funny thing about pilgrimages is that when they're over you have nothing to do. so i am back to travel for its own sake, a worthy enough cause and one of which the sufis were quite fond anyway. there is a bit in the koran about taking care of the wayfarer - the root of hospitality is a watching god - and i guess someone's got to fill those walking shoes.
so for the time being i reside in a sleepy fishing town populated by empty hotels and geese and an unlikely number of black cats who contrive to cross my path with comforting regularity. there are some nice mountains and some shit weather which deprives me of climbing very far. there is a massive freshwater lake of cloudy turquoise. there is sweet f/a to do. i am an html monkey for my keep. its funny to be back with the small tortures of microsoft frontrage, let's see how long i can stand it.
i'm hoping to be back in the eu in a week or two where i can work for actual money, but my plans are like a turkish construction site; they tend to fall apart before they're finished. from the window i can see some examples - they've hacked out a bit of the mountain to make room for some pastel tower blocks. i'm waiting for the landslide...
1. Not unusual in a nation of people who fall in love in minutes, fortunately i don't suffer from the same curse.
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