Soul-fixing in Konya

Soon after arriving in Konya, I set out on a search for a fixer of soles. My most comfortable sandals, my most sturdy travel companions for years, are coming apart at the soles and I’m not ready to part with them. I am looking for a shoe repair shop in the side streets off Rumi’s mausoleum. I want my soles fixed, glued back on, I explain to a genial-looking mochi . He speaks no English. Can’t be done, he shakes his head. Just then a young woman in a headscarf, and holding a smartphone, peeps into his tiny shop and immediately calls a friend and hands her phone to me. The friend speaks English! I tell him to ask the mochi why he can’t fix my soles. They are too old, the adhesive won’t work, is the reply. Disappointed, I take back my sandals and prepare to leave. My young intercessor, Zeyneb, runs a souvenir shop next door and invites me to sit with her for a while because I look distraught. In her shop, over glasses of sweet, black Turkish tea, we bond with the help of Google Translate and laugh like silly girls. When she closes shop, we go for dinner. I tell her I’m a writer. She tells me about her family. By the time I get back to the hotel I’m getting over my sandals.

I arrived in Istanbul three days earlier and after a couple of days of fretting and waiting in queues at the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace — the usual tourist traps — with great relief boarded a bus to the green and high-plateau town of Konya, about 700 km away. Visiting Konya has been on my wish list for long. Rumi (1207-1273) lived the last years of his life in Konya and it is here that he composed his magnum opus, the Mathnawi . He is lovingly known as Mevlana (the master) in Turkey. Konya turns into a bustling city around the time of Rumi’s annual urs (the day of union with his Beloved) in mid-December. Devotees and lovers of mystical poetry throng to Konya.

I’m glad I visited in April — fewer tourists, cool and sunny weather, vacant hotel rooms and thousands of colourful tulips.

Standing under the hushed air of the green dome of Rumi’s mezar (grave in Turkish), surrounded by turquoise tiles, calligraphed Quranic verses, and the embroidered gold cloth over his tomb, my prayers become unfocused. Rendered unnecessary almost, I feel prayers are already understood.

Mine are wordless pleas. For self. For world. I feel bewildered and helpless and pulled outside of time, beyond the rational mind-frame I’m usually trapped in.

I’m at the Kaa’ba of lovers. I’ve come here seeking what the deficient, the incomplete ones, seek: completeness.

Rumi’s words, inscribed at the entrance to his mausoleum, address me:

Kaabat ul usshaq bashad een maqam

Har ke naqas aamad eenja shod tamam

(A Kaa’ba for lovers is this space/ All who come here, the broken, the incomplete/ Find wholeness and completion.)

Will I find wholeness? I understand even better the strength of what was pulling me to Konya when I lean against the carved wooden jaali of the women’s prayer area at Rumi’s mezar . Peace. I find it in the women’s prayer area. A welcome change from the masculine ethos of mosques of the subcontinent. Women are not denied entry in Turkish mosques. The ordinariness of women and children entering and leaving is what my peace is about. Women, old and young, praying, prostrating, turning rosary beads in a public space — a vibrant peace.

The best things in Konya are also free. You don’t need money to savour the city’s serenity, the crisp blue air, or marvel at the bright-eyed tulips, especially the startling shade of velvety purple-black in the Rumi garden, or delight in the friendliness of Konya’s laidback citizens. Konya is sedate and settled. There are no long lines and nobody hustles you into their restaurant, their uncle’s carpet shop or insists on becoming your tour guide like they do in Istanbul. Konya invites you to slow down and savour slowness. The manager at the tourist office is chatty and gifts me several CDs and booklets on Konya and Rumi’s poetry and mystical philosophy. Idris, the night clerk at my friendly, family-run hotel shows me the samovar: “Have cay (tea) whenever you want.” The entrance to the Mevlana Muzesi is free. Also free of charge is the whirling sema performance by the Mevlevi dervishes, held every Saturday night at the impressive Mevlana Kultur Merkezi (Mevlana Cultural Centre). As I watch the dervishes whirl to the accompaniment of a live orchestra, along with thousands of rapt spectators in the dimly-lit grand auditorium, I feel entranced by the call of the soulful ney (reed flute) and the swirl of the flower-like white skirts. They seem lost in their dance, in their quest of union with the One. Their arms are crossed across the chest to represent the oneness of the One. And then the right hand is raised skywards to receive blessings and the left hand lowered to pass it on to those there to receive.

On weekends and national holidays visitors start arriving early at Rumi’s shrine, and by mid-morning the Mevlana Muzesi or museum complex is teeming with locals and foreigners. The Muzesi houses the mystic’s mausoleum, a café, souvenir shops, and a museum with personal belongings of Rumi, old manuscripts of the Mathnawi , Mevlevi musical instruments and clothes worn by whirling dervishes.

Some afternoons I sit by my hotel window and watch old Turkish ladies, wearing headscarves and long skirts, arriving with plastic bags filled with sweet offerings to be distributed at the shrine.

One morning I arrive early at the mausoleum. I stand under the green dome and plead with Rumi. “Don’t forsake us. Fulfil your promise. Don’t let us turn into a caravan of despair. There’s war and violence, and poverty and greed everywhere you turn. There’s so much unhappiness. Most people are struggling to find meaning and happiness.”

Does Rumi’s spirit answer me?

“Open your inner eye. Don’t you feel safe and peaceful at this moment? Did you think your coming here would’ve been possible if there wasn’t any good in the world?”

What I come away with is nothing new: the world is neither all-good nor all-bad. It’s also true that I’m in Konya despite life’s inevitable obstacles. God’s grace. Rumi’s blessings. I decide if I’m asked what my religion is, my reply would be mazhab-e-ishq (the religion of love):

Come, come whoever you are

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving —

It doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair —

Come even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.

Come yet again, come, come.

On my last night in Konya, a gigantic, pearl moon rises to the left of the green dome of Rumi’s mezar . My hotel window looks out onto Mevlana Square. Two men are abluting at the fountain in the middle of the square in preparation for prayers. A dog saunters past. Colourful flags strung across the square flutter in the breeze. The souvenir shops around here have closed. The prayer call from the mosque fills the tranquil night air: a moment of reflection and gratitude. I leave my window open as I jot down my thoughts. Have I received what I came to receive? As I look out at the moon, I sense the answer.

On my last morning I rise early and go downstairs. Idris gives me a bouquet of flowers and pours out fresh tea and we talk. Anytime is teatime in Turkey, as is evident from crowded teahouses in every city. Idris serves me breakfast — bread, butter, jam, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers — but I don’t have an appetite. I’m sad to leave. Then Zeyneb enters with a whirling dervish pendant as my parting gift. I can’t stop my tears. Was this purely accidental? Meeting Zeyneb and Idris? Or was the soul-fixing barkat (grace) of Rumi at work?

On the way to the tiny Konya airport and on the flight back to Istanbul, the usual doubts resurface. But they are no longer tinged with cynicism. I feel I have been granted the gift of a lifetime: the spiritual himmat (aspiration) to become a true practitioner of mazhab-e-ishq .

(Nighat Gandhi, based in Allahabad, is the author of Alternative Realities: Love in the lives of Muslim Women)

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