November 17, 2006
Ankara, Turkey
I know it's been a while since my usual emails, but it's been a hectic month. Also, I know that a few of you, Ok, two of you in particular, think that I have gone off the deep end, and while I appreciate your concern (you guys are like vultures!), my soul-searching days have been amazing thus far.
Real Life: Ain't It Grand?
Fine, I know you guys are asking when I lead a normal life amidst all these deep thoughts, and let me tell you, it is rough, but it does happen. For two of the past four weeks, I was in Istanbul and Bulgaria. In Istanbul, I spent most of my time with five or six American girls who are studying abroad in Cairo, and one of them happened to be a good friend from Berkeley. Those ten days were absolutely perfect in every sense of the word. We hit up all of the touristy places, hung out with some Turkish friends, and pretty much acted as ridiculous as we could. One of my favorite memories is walking down Istiklal street singing Bollywood songs with two of them. We had our arms linked even though it is one of the most crowded streets ever, and under the glaring lights and smoke I just didn't care anymore. So we were tourists. Fine. So we were singing Shah Rukh Khan Hits. Yes, strange. So I sound like a dying cow when I sing. But honestly, I felt so free. Then there was our last night when two guys from Cairo showed up and we spent three hours, just four of us, standing in the middle of the street laughing until we fell down. I remember holding onto a car, with tears streaming down my face, trying not to pass out, and thinking how lucky I was. Because, really, who gets to be serenaded by a white guy who sings "You are my soniya" perfectly, watch a guy who impersonates people with impeccable style, and spend quality time with someone from home in the most perfect city in the world? The next day, I took a nine hour bus to Sofia, and at the border, being the only American on the bus I got some special treatment also known as heavy scrutiny and harassment. When I got to Sofia, I realized I had made no plans on where to stay, so I walked out of the huge bus terminal, brazenly sat down in a cab and told him, "Take me to a hotel." The smart ass pulled up to the Ritz, or something equally showy. Ok, yeah, are you going to pay for me, buddy? The doorman was sweet, though, and he handed us a city guide and I decided to rough it in a hostel, instead. Oh, the problems of a world traveler. The next morning, the lady who ran the hostel asked me if I spoke Spanish, and I thought she needed help because she spoke no English, so I didn't understand. Instead, she introduced me to her son who had just returned from Spain after two years, and he offered to show me around the city for the whole day. I know I gave him the "Ok, but what do you really want" look because he immediately said, I am just trying to help. Trust me. Ha! No, but really, he was a great tour guide: smart, funny, and a perfect gentleman. And I got to see the city in one day without getting lost, and with a cute Bulgarian boy who spoke Spanish. Yes, I am lucky; I readily admit this. Sofia is a beautiful city. It's quiet but intense and it is filled with equally beautiful people who are gentle and polite. There is a calm graciousness to the city that I cannot explain, except that it is even euphoric, to some extent. A calm that brings you to an intense desire for fantasy amidst the plain, sunny reality. We walked into huge churches, and for the first time, I felt strangely moved by religious buildings. Maybe it was magic, maybe it was the desperation of needing to believe in something. Whatever it was, it felt beautiful. It's been three weeks now, and in my head, I see it as cobblestones and sunshine and innocence. That is all I really need to remember.
This past weekend, three friends from Istanbul visited, and it was the strangest time; mostly because an American girl was showing them around their capital city. During the night time, we hit up all the snobby parts of the city and laughed at the fakeness of it all. Sitting with three other girls, making fun of bad pick-up lines from neighboring tables, listening to live music, talking about men, clothes, and getting drunk without caring for nights in a row for the first time in almost four months made me feel weightless. I forget sometimes that I am just another girl who has a right to girl talk and bottles of wine, even if I want to save the world. Life is fair like that.
Brought to you by the Vice President of Fantasyland
Yesterday, while running late to meet a friend, I had to buy metro tickets. After I asked for ten of them, I ran towards the train in a rush, but as soon as I sat down, it hit me. It hit me while I was buying metro tickets. Not when I said goodbye at work, not when I saw my Istanbul friends for the last time, and not even when I had an amazing four hour conversation with a great guy. An ugly pink paper card did it for me. I looked down at the ticket in my hand and I realized that I wouldn't need ten more rides. Funny how it's always the little things in life. Right now, I'm watching Kabhi Alvida naa Kehna while writing this because, frankly, that foul movie does not deserve even half of anyone's attention, but I still have to watch it. I am four months overdue, and besides, someone posted the whole thing on youtube. Ironically, Vandana is watching the DVD right now in Japan, and we are simultaneously making fun of Shah Rukh's bad acting and the matching extras walking all over Manhattan. It's a small piece of home that I am forever grateful for in my time away from you. Aydin is over, and to appease him for not spending time with him, I am making him watch Y tu Mama, Tambien in the next room. Right now, I don't want to talk to him because just looking at him makes me depressed – I will even miss our Jane/Tarzan conversations because there is nothing more fun than making friends with someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. Yet, we have somehow managed to cement a friendship, albeit the strangeness of it all. I guess what I am trying to say is that it has all been a strange time, but it has been most rejuvenating. I finally did it. 60 hours before my flight, I called the Airlines and asked when my flight was on Sunday. Yes, I know that sounds a bit ludicrous, seeing as I am leaving for another country, another life (because that is what I am really doing, right?), another chance, and yet, I still did not want to know. I think we've all realized that I am the best procrastinator out there…I bought my Turkey ticket 36 hours before I left. My dad just called me moments ago and he finally brought up the unsaid issue (maybe because my mom is visiting her brother in Florida and so someone isn't yelling at him every time we talk): me never being able to sit still. He asked me when I was going to be happy in one place, and we both laughed quietly, him as the understanding father and me as the lost wanderer, because neither of us wanted to acknowledge the unspoken but obvious answer. Yesterday, I met up with someone I don't know too well, he left town today to take some lawyer test, to say my goodbyes and to fill some chat time. Yet, we ended talking for four hours and I found myself telling him what I really think the world is like and how my mind really works, things that I have never told anyone else – sometimes all you need is a lucky connection. And then I compared some Turkish author to Hitler. Yes, I do have a way with good impressions. There I was pouring out my heart, thoughts, and frustrations to someone whom I maybe had spent a grand total of 20 hours with, but it felt perfect. Amidst the hum of Turkish chatter, talking to some guy who is practically a stranger (in logical terms only) made me realize that we definitely need to, as crude as this may be, screw boundaries. Countries, cities, languages – they mean nothing in terms of humanity. Ironically, this is coming from someone who is obsessed with the abrasive cultural implications of genocide and human rights, but hey, we can forget that for now. As you can see, the more I travel, the more naïve I become. I feel as if someday soon I am going to hand my soul over to the next person who speaks to me on a magical night under the snowfall just because it feels right. Aren't I supposed to become tougher and more cynical? Most of the time, though, I am content to walk out alone into the biting cold at night and walk past the clusters of people under the scattered lights of a small city and feel perfectly happy as the wind forces my hair –unattractively, may I add – into my face. It's just so perfect to be a bystander and feel as if you belong at the same time. Going soft is really not my style, but Turkey, of all the places in the world, has done me in. You would think it would have been Buenos Aires, Paris, or even Edinburgh, for the love of God, but here I am. Of course, there are repercussions; maybe that's why I guarded myself for so long. People always ask me how I can get off a plane and walk into a city with eyes practically closed, waiting for the first person to chop me up into little pieces and eat me. I guess I just believe that there are more good people than bad people out there in the world, and I have been lucky so far to find the very best in every place. I mean, look at my roommates here – I could not have asked for more perfect friendships, but I have told you this already. What I have learned, though, is that emotional robbery (as cheesy as that sounds please don't hate me. I am leaving, you know how I get) is far worse than any material loss. I really did leave my heart out on a silver platter this time, and it has come back to me like it was ravaged by the Donner family, Ok, fine, not really, but it sounds good, right? Right. Anyway, I, for the first time in my life, invited any person with half a brain and a smile into my life, as if I were an emotional welcome mat and warm apple pie that welcome the new neighbors. And I learned my lesson. I love it. No matter my current desire to pluck out someone's eyelashes one by one and then re-glue them with a hot glue gun, I really liked the liberating feeling for the past three months of just letting my guard down. The good memories (barely) outweigh the idiotic behavior. And I know that in a few weeks, I will trust this individual again, and we may be as good friends as I thought we would become.
As much as I think I have changed, I re-read an email to someone just two weeks before I left, and maybe I haven't changed that much. Or maybe I have and I've come back a full circle? Who knows. It is too early to tell, but I know that I have still salvaged the ME-ness that is Khushbu. Spanish pop, passion, diet coke, an insipid amount of optimism, inappropriate jokes, and just a little bit of crazy to keep me sane. Ciao, Turkey. Now, it is time to say goodbye to a country that I counted the days until I left for the first few weeks. Yet, I cannot remember where the time went in the last two and a half months. Sometime in between my whining and impatience, it started to feel like home. Maybe not Ankara because I categorize it as a cold city, but the warmness that emanates from people balances it out. There are friendships here that are so magnetic and real, that have formed in such a short time, and I do not want to let them go. The people are different; it is hard to explain, but everyone needs to experience Istanbul and Turkish hospitality once in their life so I will leave this up to you to decide what it is in the water here.
In the past three months, I haven't decided whether I was in the East or still in the West, how I feel about Turkish history, the EU issue, and the controversy surrounding the Armenian issue and Cyprus. What I do know, though, is that I am not the same Berkeley loon who believes everything written on Sproul right away anymore.
I don't feel as heartbroken to leave Ankara as I did Santiago, and maybe that says more about the changes in me than my experiences in each place. Instead of leaving my heart in each place, I am learning to take a little bit of each place with me. That's the magic of it all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment