The Lure of Pilgrimage
It is a sun-kissed day in May and I’m sitting in a bohemian café, delighting in the splendid view of both Europe and Asia. The rhythmic sounds of the sapphire-blue Bosphorus waves thrashing against the pavements are enough to lull me into a reverie.
On my way to Haghia Sophia, I am greeted by bursts of colorful tulips perfuming the air with their summery scents. The mosque is a testament of beautiful cross-culture, originally built as a church that was later converted into a mosque. The dim candlelight flickered peacefully against the glorious names of the beloved Prophet PBUH and his companions. Topkapi Palace is a splendor of aristocracy and nobility that was home to Ottoman kings for 400 years.
Home to a potpourri of civilizations; the Byzantine, the Romans, and the Ottomans, Istanbul is like an open storybook, luring me into its timeless pages of rich history, opulent palaces, and feasts for the souls. Its libraries are havens of muted stories, waiting to be conjured in the meadows of my mind.
One of the most riveting emotions I experience when reading Turkish literature is the concept of hüzün or melancholy. Tinted in tales from the Ottoman era to modern Istanbul, one can’t help but immerse in the mysterious ways melancholy shapes Turkish storytelling.
I have read books about characters who are heroic or obsessed enough to believe in that one beautiful dream, often dedicating a lifetime for so. Or reading about the passionate exchange between lovers through letters or glimpses of their eyes only. And somehow, even as writers describe the daily cacophony of ordinary life in Istanbul, it is painted in romance and becomes extraordinary.
Such beautiful tales were enough to lure me into this pilgrimage to Istanbul.
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