Erdogan

Gullibility was my middle name. Till I met Erdogan. 

I met him, or maybe he met me, in Istanbul.

I had been in Istanbul for just a few days. I was staying in a small inconsequential hotel close to the famous Istiklal Street. Travel to the most fascinating cities thus far was attributable entirely to Ash. Her work-related conferences would be held in lovely resort-type settings and I was not entirely reluctant to tag along. Given a good book or two, my laptop, and my thoughts, I was pretty much a happy camper.    

The trip to Turkey was no different. Within the first few days I had already read my book, caught up on my biomedical research writing, and mulled over the intricacy of life; the requisites of any trip with Ash. By then I had also toured the aromatic Spice Bazaar, the majestic Topkapi Palace, the resplendent Blue Mosque, and the breathtaking Haga Sophia. The descriptors were not mine; they were per the tourist’s guide.

On the fateful day, I had not taken my tourist guide with me. That was an attempt to get a feel for the pulse of the city, in real-time. While walking the streets, I stumbled upon a tomb that claimed to be the authentic one of the celebrated Sufi poet Rumi. Had I been diligent in my research about Rumi’s earth-bound resting place I would have realized that his actual grave was in Konya, a smaller city in the central Anatolian region of Turkey, rather than in Istanbul.

Although Rumi’s fake-but-real-to-me tomb was quite underwhelming, I was supremely ecstatic to have discovered it. The day before I had been mesmerized by a live performance of the whirling dervishes, hence coming across Rumi’s tomb seemed serendipitous. Little did I know that later in the day I would come across more twirling that would be the complete antithesis to the whirling dervish mission.   

I felt fortunate that the tomb was close to where I was staying. I rushed back to my hotel to grab my camera that I had forgotten to take with me that morning. On my way out, it occurred to me to ask the concierge about the whereabouts of any traditional Turkish hammam (bathhouse) in the vicinity. Visiting one, to take photographs, had been on my list of things to do since a friend had mentioned that the calligraphy and architecture of such places were delightful.  

“Sir, uhh..we call taxi. You go five-star Turkish hammam with five-course meal, internet axis and full-body maessaghe”, rattled off the concierge in broken English. 

He was so eager to pack me off that I felt bad telling him that I was not interested.

What I did not tell him, and he would not have understood, was that his offer was counter-intuitive to my agenda of exploring the streets, meeting Rumi, albeit dead, and if possible, photographing but not being massaged in a hammam.

I was standing outside the hotel getting my backpack ready when I first heard Erdogan.

“Where are you from, my friend?”

I was taken aback. I could have sworn that there had been no one there just a second ago.

He was a tall, ruggedly good-looking, dark-complexioned man, with long unkempt hair and just a hint of a day’s beard. A large beaded necklace, with the famous Turkish evil eye as its centerpiece, adorned his neck. He appeared to be in his twenties – a college student likely was the thought that crossed my mind. 

He spoke English well, relative to the broken English of most people on the streets of Istanbul that I had come across thus far.   

“I’m from Houston...that’s in the state of Texas in the United States of America”, I responded, adding the unnecessary bit quite unkindly. I have an aversion to strangers without any appreciation of boundaries – and if they are chatty then I get a bit rebellious since I belong to the ‘no small talk brigade’.

My rudeness did not deter him. “I know of a really old hammam for my Texan friend to visit...”, said the man. “..So you can take photographs!”, was then said in quick succession.

It was the sucker look on my face that he preyed on and his well-dressed charm exuding confidence that I succumbed to. And he knew.

“Erdogan at your service”, he said, with, what appeared to be, a genuinely warm smile on his face.

I was rather touched by his generosity. From a bygone era in a far-off place, I heard my mother say, “Nothing comes for free”. I obviously did not pay heed to that.

 “How far is this hammam?” I inquired, having forgotten even Rumi temporarily. What I should have asked him instead, and it did not occur to me till later, was, “Erdogan, how did you know that I was hammam bound?”

Erdogan reassured me that it was not too far.

“It’s an excavation site since it’s really old”, said Erdogan. “Did you know Mevlana frequented it?” This too was said knowledgeably while looking me right in the eyes.

“Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi? Wow! Erdogan that is just awesome.” Though I cringe at that Americanism when my kids use it, I couldn’t help lapse into myself, given the circumstances. “I’ve already been to Rumi’s tomb today and now I get to see the hammam he visited”. In my excitement, I missed the sardonic grin that transiently flashed across Erdogan’s face. By then he knew he had me roped and he was merely pulling me in.

As we walked off towards the hammam, Erdogan was camaraderie personified. “Brother, where are you from...really?” I guess I was not Texan enough for him. When I told him that I was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, Erdogan became even chattier. “Brother, Turkey and Pakistan are like this!” ‘This’ was emphasized with a gesture consisting of interlinked fingers of both hands raised to the sky as if he had just won a race.

While listening to his commentary about the significance of Pakistan for the solidarity of Turkey we walked about a mile. By that time he had led me down a narrow nondescript side lane. We were standing at the doorway of an establishment that looked quite shady and not at all like the hammam I had imagined.

“This does not appear to be an excavation site”, I told my guide.

“It is, it is...my friend, my brother. Let’s go in”, Erdogan insisted and took me inside.

The inside was darkly lit, but from what I could gauge I realized, a bit late, that this was not the hammam I was meant to be in.

Photo credit: Riaz Khan, a photographer based in Houston

The overhead strobe lights lit up a few skimpily dressed women on mini-stages gyrating to rave-like nonsensical music.

“Maybe these are the circular movements that provide them comfort and serenity”, was the thought that crossed my mind. The juxtaposition of the two whirling performances over a two-day period was ridiculous yet hilarious, but I did not feel like sharing the mirth with Erdogan.  

“Erdogan! What is the meaning of this?”, is what I heard myself say. In my rage, I did not notice that the front door, my exit route, had been shut and I was being approached by three tall men who appeared far from hospitable and highly unlikely to be encouraging of the Pakistani – Turkish fraternity.

“Sorry, no inderstand.... no Eenglish!” Erdogan’s precise English had become a figment of my imagination.

The leader of the pack pushed me into a booth and pointed toward the two women closest to us.

“Which one will you take to the hammam? They are European.” The latter was said for my benefit, supposedly to entice.

The European women snickered. They didn’t quite make the cut for hookers based on the few movies I had seen on that topic.

“I don’t want any and I am just going to walk out now”, I said with as much confidence as I could muster and got up to leave.

“You bastard! We know your type. You come in here looking for hammam, but what you really need is woman!” That was the leader. He shoved me down onto the seat and then readied his fist to connect with my jaw. The whole scenario of being trapped in there and being mauled by these thugs was burlesque enough, but I did not feel like laughing right then.

Neither was it the right moment to get my captors to distinguish between wants and needs, but I couldn’t help it.    

“Listen, brother – friend”, I said looking directly at Erdogan, “I already have a woman. Or she has me. I neither need nor want another woman. I can only deal with one woman at a time.” The last bit was said to provide some much-needed comic relief. Things were getting a bit too serious.   

I think I managed to get through to Erdogan because at that point he intervened and said something in Turkish to his leader.

“Hand over all your cash, you whoring infidel”, the chief demanded. 

And I did as I was told.

I was then ignominiously chucked out of the questionable hammam, and told never to show my face there again.

At the doorway, I must have painted a pathetic picture when I asked Erdogan, “Why?”

With a matter-of-fact and extremely coherent “Fuck off!”, Erdogan turned around and went back into the hammam-that-was-not. 

That was the last time I saw Erdogan.

The episode had left me poorer by almost eight hundred dollars, but the thrashing that my ego took was irreparable and irreversible. And it was needed.     

With dampened spirits, I caught my flight home the next day.

Since then I have often thought about the misadventure. This is what I understand after a few more encounters of being swindled: I trust people and I treat them the way I expect to be treated. Erdogan, as he claimed to be, taught me of the danger inherent in forgetting my mother’s wisdom: not to trust a stranger in an unknown land. He also taught me that it was my assumption that people would be fair and forthright in their dealings with me, even if it happened to be ‘the land of Rumi’.

The above semi-conclusion, for now, was reinforced by a tale of eons ago - you might have heard it, or some version thereof, from your grandparents. A scorpion piggybacks on a turtle to get across the river and then stings the turtle. “How could you do that? It's in my nature to help?”, says the turtle with a bruised ego. To which the scorpion retorts, “How can I not sting you when it's in my nature to sting?”

Anyhow, how did Erdogan know that I was interested in visiting a hammam? “Maybe he and the concierge were in cahoots?”, is what my mind says. Yet he had not been in earshot while I was talking to the concierge. And it was unlikely that the concierge called him in the thirty seconds that it took me to exit the hotel. Erdogan, or whoever that guy was, seemed to have appeared out of thin air while I was standing in the street. 

But what really keeps me awake, especially at night, is not knowing the real identity of the person buried in that deceptively marked grave.

[from An Itinerant Observer]