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"