Worlds, thresholds, year ends.....

We all create worlds around us. Worlds with self given names, desired dynamics and associated predictability... be it a world of business or worldly relationships where we want ourselves to act in a chosen way for a desired outcome OR a personal world where like a painter's canvas we expose ourselves to the mercy of other beings who we think have all the rights to create us. This creating of worlds in the midst of controllable and uncontrollable predictability is sometimes i think what we call as living life.

I am seeing every day, people around me creating, non-stoppingly, different worlds of all sorts, dark and horny worlds where the only way to survive is trusting no one .... soft and harmonious worlds where the only intent to live is to live for others...apathetic and devoid-of-meaning worlds where life becomes just a stone rolling or an eighteenth century portrait staring in the dark....uncanny and spiritual worlds where the whole pursuit becomes finding more light and meanings...

Now the funny part is, the more we spend time in putting details to our created worlds, the more we become used to of living in it.Its like a love affair. The whole creation becomes the comfort zone, the only reality, the life for us, and we start thinking as if a movie is playing with all stereo and Dolby effects where we are just characters delightedly condemned to follow the storyline written by an outsider us....When this happens, we reach what i can call 'the yield point threshold of life', a point of un-seemingly no return... a point where any load applied to our seemingly elastic life provides no change to the pattern or color or state of our perceived self.

Most of us reach this threshold quite early in their lives, though appearing to think they have not...making the rest of the life just a comic or tragic following of a story. Some of us think of this threshold close to every end of the year, thinking of giving new colors to the already led sepia-scopic life and buying some more time before the yield point occurs.... Very few dare to create a world from scratch and exceptionally few do it every year.

So here I am... at the end of another year... a miraculously revealing year, a butterfly year, a year when so many things happened to me.... and yet here i am at the end of another year, with pretty much the same questions dancing around my head ...surely unsure of if i have crossed the yield point threshold of my life... here i am  again, still dreaming to create new worlds from scratch...New desires, new loves blossoming within my soul. So many new journeys to make, ever shrinking and ever expanding  butterfly moments to pass, and i am still half way to heaven and no way nearer....

I want to end this year's last blog with one of Neruda's poems..

Mientras escribo estoy ausente
y cuando vuelvo ya he partido:
voy a ver si a las otras gentes
les pasa lo que a mi me pasa,
si son tantos como soy yo,
si se parecen a si mismos
y cuando lo haya averiguado
voy a aprender tan bien las cosas
que para explicar mis problemas
le hablare de geografia....

(Translation) 

While i am writing, I'm far away;

And when i come back, I 've gone.

I would like to know if others

go through the same things that I do.

have as many selves as I have,

and see themselves similarly;

and when I 've exhausted this problem,

I'm going to study so hard

that when i explain myself,

I'll be talking geography......

Saffron Stockholm nights...

"We Swedish love saffron in our foods" she said.

It was my last days in the cold windy Stockholm and I was invited for dinner at her place... the apartment was kaleidoscopic in its own humble way... as if the  the colors of time and space were dancing all around her living room, sometimes beaming with oldness and the coziness that comes with old buildings , and then as you look on the other side the contemporary sofas and sitting tables and ipads and lcd screens  brings you to present times... seeing on one side the African handicrafts hanging around, takes you back to the continent of raw hope, and then you see the other side where the  wooden piano of western culture greets you with open arms, tempting you to dance ... and on top of this the boxes here and there full of books and  petty things and the bunker bed reaching the roof and the openly hanging clothes,  all of them adding their own bohemian touch to the whole ambiance of her apartment.

With the smell of cinnamon and spices from slowly simmering glogg spreading all over the place , and the shadows coming to dance from candles burning all over , we ate our two course dinner of fish soup and fried mushrooms while starting to discuss one of her favorite topics of man woman equality ..... and we discussed alot that night... about everything there was to discuss ... music, food, religion, consciousness, god , humans, children, life, hope, desire, emotions... I told her the mere feeling of self consciousness, of sitting right here feeling this self awareness pushes me to think of creating meanings in this seemingly organized chaotic world... She told me how she feel uneasy when it comes to emotions, as if it is some force totally uncontrollable and having its own life and breath taking you into unknown... i told her about my dreams of making and selling perfumes someday... she told me about the indigenous people of Sweden and there musical way of communicating long distances.
We finished our night sipping the hot glogg with ginger biscuits , and bit of playing of piano , a perfect dinner ending , much more satisfying then a happy ending.......

Long after that, walking on the pebbled streets of her Stockholm and moving between subway trains, i was thinking, how unlike us , the people of the west treat loneliness as one of their most prized possessions , loving and hating it at the same time.... I see loneliness everywhere here, in the eyes of people standing on sub way metro with their headphones plugged on , or with their little dogs, or even in the eyes of couples trying to hold each-other as if something unwanted is about to happen.... I was thinking the other day, is it really the objective reality I see here, or is it my own subjective loneliness that super-imposes on everything I see around me....

Saffron nights are over... am sitting on my plane heading towards my own land, having her own chaotic and beautiful colors, away from the cold windy Stockholm, away from the warm people I met and made friends with during  multiple dinners and parties and concerts and bar hopping and after-parties in cold Stockholm.... I think someday many years into the future, somewhere in this ever shrinking world, when I would be old and will have nothing else to do but just to think of the past, the cold winds and drizzling rains  will definitely be reminding me of these warm people of Sweden and the saffron filled nights cheering up my own cultivated loneliness....

Masoomiyet Muzesi (The museum of innocence in Turkish)

Dear Ertyaas,
Your butterflies are not leaving me anywhere in the world. They start flying from the books of Gabo, they show themselves in the museums of your city, and now this time this single one appears in this first shelf of Masoomiyet Muzesi, the house of Kemal where he is collecting all the objects that reminded him of her beloved Fusun. I was standing in front of this shelf carrying the ear-ring of Fuson's in the form of this tiny little butterfly about to fly into the unknown, and i was thinking of you.....

Orhan Pamuk who built this museum of innocence in downtown Istanbul once said that,
"If we learn to think of life not as a fine line like Aristotle’s Time but as a series of intense moments of which we are reminded one by one by objects, then hanging around our sweetheart’s table for eight years will strike us not as something strange to make fun of but rather like the 1,593 happy evenings I spent at Füsun’s house.” (Excerpts from the book The museum of Innocence)

You must see it, whenever you are in Istanbul. Yes i know your Istanbul is beautiful, as you say a city of memories and dreams, but this one standing house opened just two months back is like a single wine glass full of red wine in the old congested neighborhood of Istanbul showing you the same Istanbul in whole different color. A work of a genius artist, a dreamer, a writer Orhan pamuk, who created this Museum of innocence and also wrote a book with the same name.  For him it is not the museum trying to elaborate the book, nor the book telling about the museum, but both in their own humble way telling the same story of Kemal's love for Fusun. After seeing the museum you will find yourself living in a world where anything can happen... with small things collected from garbage telling stories of their own , be it the driving license of Fusun, the clip of Milliyet newspaper showing Fusun in her beauty contest, or the fake jenny colon bag which becomes the very excuse for Kemal to be in love with her........shelves after shelves, you see things associated with Fusun ,her hair clips, sewing machines, half empty cups of Turkish coffee and Chai(tea), etc etc, all trying in their most innocent way to tell the story of Kemal's love of Fusun and their intense moments together.

Orhan Pamuk used the word happiness more then 260 times in his book(museum of innocence)....I cannot say if the museum made me happy or sad, but the very first shelf carrying the Butterfly ear-ring of Fusun's did make me smile, and so did the last sentence of the novel saying "Let it be for all clear that I lived a happy life" 

They say coincidence is god's way of remaining anonymous... and so just after I came out of the museum, the first girl I saw selling books was wearing another butterfly hairband...... And then you say I should not believe in a god......

From somewhere in downtown Istanbul,
Salman

Inner most desires...

Its funny, whenever I ask someone what his/her inner most desire is, they always tell me of their fears. Then I have to correct them, telling, I am not asking about their inner most fears but inner most desires. Is it something to do with the uncertain times we are living in, that people have forgotten the difference between desires and fears, or is it the fear taking over our inner most pure desires like a virus, to the extent that we have forgotten the difference....

It was Ertyaas, who asked me the same question first time, about what my inner most desire is. I still remember we were sitting in a small cave cafe somewhere in central turkey few years back. A big Nargilla(sheesha) with a mint flavor was burning in the middle and somewhere far we could hear Sazen aksu singing 'Izmir Yaniyor'. I too made the same mistake, telling her about my FOMO (fear of missing out), of not doing things in this life, and she smiled and asked me again' what is your inner most desire and not fears' stressing on the words 'most inner desires' and asking me to think a bit before answering.... I donot remember what i said exactly at that time, but it was something to do with traveling or adventure.

Now years later, with memories from 30 countries and a lot of fulfilled desires... from traveling to  falling from the skies, breathing deep in the seas, swimming with fishes bigger then me and doing a lot of crazy things, I am once again in turkey.... listening to same sezen aksu's Izmir Yaniyor... (grubun rengi boyarken bile sahili turuncuya ) watching the sun coloring the shore into orange ... the desire factory in my heart is still creating desires, and my mind is still warning me with fears..... And I am still trying to find, what my inner most desire is...


PS:
Listen to sezen's Izmir Yaniyor at below
http://youtu.be/FhWVLvidlO8

English translation of the song on the link below
http://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/turkish-lyrics-translation/67245-ferhat-gocer-izmir-yaniyor.html

Gabo is forgetting things....

Gabo is forgetting things...... Gabo once said that, all days are the same Tuesdays.... Am sitting now in this far eastern small town in turkey, smelling the same khushburnu chai(tea) , listening to the same old Turkish music, seeing the same faces talking to me.... its the third time i am here in this town, and it seems like life is becoming just another Tuesday..... Is it the eventual re-occurrence of things that makes us start forgetting, is it the same way we forget our breathing because of its eventuality and abundance  that one day we start forgetting about life too ... can life be forgotten because of abundance of itself, like breathing.......?

Gabo is forgetting things... somewhere in Mexico, he stopped writing years ago, perhaps he is so busy creating worlds in his mind that he is forgetting there is a world outside of him too.... A world which still has the remains of the city of Macando... A world where the quarantined ship still is sailing somewhere in the Caribbean...A world where people like me still need butterfly houses to keep on dreaming more...

Gabo is forgetting things .... all the magical worlds created by him, all the butterfly houses will be forgotten by him. but why i am so concerned.. is it the fear of forgetting the worlds i have created in my mind for years and years that is troubling me? or is it the awareness that everybody starts forgetting someday.... Can someone really forget things..... He is still breathing but he is forgetting things...... Soon he will forget us all, perhaps he has already...  and we will forget him too and life will go on, without noticing.....

(To all my friends, colleagues, classmates, people i have drank tea with, to all of them whom i am trying hard, not to forget). 


PS:
Heard the news today that, Garcia Marquez most affectionately called by the name "Gabo" is suffering from Dementia. One of the best latin american writer with novels like "one hundred years of solitude" and "love in the times of cholera"

"Woofy"...

It was my second day in the cold, sunny Johannesburg. I was staying in a big old estate turned into a guesthouse, with alot of zebras, horses, birds and different breeds of dogs wondering around . A nice place to rest and be with nature.
I saw her sitting on the stairs, staring at the birds. Beautifully white, shiny sad eyes, with an unforgettable personality. She was totally unlike other dogs. I took her as a Canadian Husky in the first place. I said to the owner of the lodge, "What a nice dog you have, so beautifully white"
And she smiled, " Its not a dog, its a wolf, a 2nd generation Canadian wolf born and living in our estate for last 6 years"

Wow! I couldn't believe my eyes that i was playing with a wolf. I never met a wolf before in my life, and definitely not someone so close. All the images in my mind about wolves were from the scary werewolf horror movies I saw over the years, showing the anger side of wolves, making my fear instincts on alert, but this wolf was not angry. May be she was, but not showing. She was different, not like the other dogs, who come and wanted to play with you. She was on her own, a totally self-actualized creature, never asking you to be played. If someone calls her, she just comes closer and stares boldly and honestly, not a single word or bark, just her eyes saying silently, I belong to no one. 

Long before I read Hesse's book "steppenwolf"(a must read) and i remembered one of the chapter, where Hesse talks about the dual nature of the character Harry. One being of the human, and the other being of the wolf, and both trying to dominate each-other.  Whenever the human side of the nature is doing some thing good, its the wolf that was laughing at him and whenever the wolf was dominating, the human part condemns him. Both natures living in perpetual enmity. 

I wondered about "Woofy" the wolf, how she has managed to soften the wolf side of her and living peacefully with the humans. The owner told me, her parents are still living in the cage, but she is used to of humans and pretty domesticated, although still sometimes they find the birds and some dogs around butchered but not eaten by her.

I thought may be we all humans have the wolf in them living in perpetual enmity with the human side, just like Woofy, having the human part in her and in constant fight with the wolf inside.

Neroli Lady....

تجھے صبح بازار میں ،بوڑھے عطار یوسف  کی دکان پر ،میں نے دیکھا 

 This morning in the bazaar when I saw you
At old Yusuf the perfumer’s shop

تو تیری نگا ھوں میں وہ تابناکی تھی ........

 In your glance was that shine

(Excerpts from N.M.Rashid's Hasan the pot Maker)

I am sitting now in this Lebanese restaurant called 'Epidor' in the oysterbay area of Dar es salam, and for no reason I am thinking of this Neroli lady i happen to meet in my trip to U.S. It was my last day in America before flying back to Africa, where my hosting brother took me to this old Pike-place market in downtown Seattle.

I saw her talking to one of her customer, advising on the type of perfume oil to use in the upcoming lunar eclipse,.......this lady (having my personal reasons to be called Neroli) was somewhere between 22 to 24 years old , quite young, and having tattoo and piercing all over her body, but their was this shine in her eyes exposing her real identity, setting her aside from everybody...  (as if the character Jahan-zaad, from the epic poem of N.M.Rashid was coming to life, and watching me from the same eyes)...

"Yes! how can i help you sir!" she asked.
(Aah! yes, certainly you are the only one who can help, i thought) and said,

Neroli Lady

'Yes i am already in love with your shop, tell me where to start'.I joked with her, but in reality that old shop was something to be loved. Lines and lines of old sepia glass bottles with no advertisement wrappings on them, just plainly and humbly showing the names of the things collected from across the world, spices, resins, dry flowers, sandal, and other perfume woods, lines and lines of anything to do with perfume materials stored on the shelf, each calling us all from their shadowy existence, waiting to give their very best, their sole existence to anyone who can rescue them.....

She looked at me and said, "Well you can follow my nose and look behind you on these small essence oils,or you can follow yours and see which smell attracts you the most".
I turned back, and i found alot of finger size bottles containing essence oils of all sorts, hundreds of them,frankincense, patchouli, lavender, civet... all the few names i knew were there plus many more... and i told my brother, 'man here goes my two three hundred dollars on these tiny bottles'. 

I remembered some years back when Ertyaas was initiating me into the world of natural perfumery and fragrances, she said once, "you must remember that every perfume is like a memory personified and lost in time, each time you smell a certain fragrance, some where deep down in our minds one of these old lost memory wakes up from its deep slumber, as if the legendary sleeping beauty is awoken by the kiss of a prince from far away land, and wanting to talk to you of all those years of waiting and silent wailing......" And here i was, in the middle of so many sleeping beauties waking up for me , so many memories , each letting me think of the gone by days,  the pine trees of my land, the butterfly museum, the autumn trees of Stockholm, the corals of Indian ocean, the walk along the river Seine, the long gone friends, all these memories that perfumed my life up until now......

"Here you go sir" packing all my purchases and said,"all these essence oils you have purchased are here and here is one small complementary gift from our shop so you donot forget us". I checked and saw this small bottle containing the Neroli essence oil........ and i thought, how would i ever be forgetting of this lady now, specially when i would be smelling Neroli......

Thank you, Neroli lady for making my day....

Note to myself:
If ever i convinced my self of settling up in U.S , one of the reasons would definitely be this Neroli lady and her shop.....



P.S:
Neroli is a very delicate essence oil, introduced into perfumery in 17th century by the princess of Nerola,Italy (see wiki for details)

Link of complete N.M.Rashid poem with English translation
Hasan Kuza-gur

Hopes , fears, love , guns ..... Choices.

"I dont know how it happened that I the admirer of logic and rational thinking became obsessed with the world of feelings and hopes and love and beauty" I said to Ertyass.

She smiled and said " And you still worry about taking this decision? "

We were sitting in a beach bar in a nice big costa rican's resort enjoying tacos with Guacamole dips and black bean souce with Zacapa. It was my first trip in the Caribbeans and i was already feeling at home in the lovely world where Marquez's butterflies were flying, Neruda's cherry blossom was happening and every created thing looks like Octavio's fountains of water...

" No i do not worry anymore of my inclining, but i was just thinking how come i changed so much!"

She said," Well! People change.... Look at this country we are sitting now , Costa Rica...., used to have a size-able army to safeguard its pretty exposed boundaries, very logical and rational to have such an army when you are surrounded by the same, every one does without asking why :)  , and then one day costa-ricans decided not to have an army at all. It is 60 years now and they do not have an army and they are still surviving, I would rather use the word enjoying than surviving. And can you see this subtle sublime smiles on the faces of these Costa-ricans....such hope in the middle of a world surrounded by such big standing armies..... Viola!"

"It is very difficult to sell hope then selling fears" I said.

"Yea, you are perhaps right .... very few people dare to do that.... look at our country .One bomb destroys the hope of thousands of flowers blossoming around in our country...One ideology of fear makes us spend so much on cuddling our fears that we forget nourishing our hopes and love of mankind" and smilingly added " I hope someday our people will also realize the power of love over the shadows of fears........I really hope, that one day comes soon enough in our lives, when there is no army in our country too, when their is no army in the whole wide world...."

And our flights of imaginations were interrupted by our smiling hosts literally pulling us to join the Meringue dance classes.

On our way back we landed from the land with a constitution allowing no army, to a land having the biggest army in the world and with a constitution safeguarding the right of every individual to have a gun. It was so funny, this country having the biggest army in the world fearing us small people, letting us wait for hours on the airport, asking silly questions.......and we were comparing the two extremes in the subtle facial expressions of immigration people on both the sides, just 2 hours away........

One thing I figured about America is every body is so possessive and obsessed about the choices they want to make, I met some lovely republicans from the south discussing the medical care and socialized medicine, and as per them the choice should be given to them to decide who to help.....a choice that in reality ends up with insurance companies robbing masses, of billions of dollars, but choice is important...(reminded me of the forced zakat deduction system in our country).... The democrats on their part also use the same word choice in their own way... On one side they want strict regulation on medicare, and on the other side they support gay marriages, seeing it as a personal choice....

On my days in America, walking through  the streets of Los-angeles, and Seattle... I was thinking, can choices be taught? It certainly seems to be the case in my country where our choices are dictated by our strict moral upbringing, but is this a case in the so called free world of America as well? May be the forefathers who migrated to America made difficult choices in their own lives, disregarding all that was taught to them from the society morals and ethics and religion... perhaps its the DNA of those adventurous people which still boils when it comes to making personal choices?

On the other hand, is not the choices that makes people's life so difficult? can a world not be beautiful without choices...is choice not just a confusion between what is beautiful and what is not.

May be i am getting too old to think about choices and feel blessed in my already achieved world of beauty and love.