12 pm. 10th December,2010. After crossing one continent, two seas and a leap of time and space, I finally walked on the land of Ottomans, braving the cold Istanbul wind biting into my bones. On slippery grounds both politically and mentally, an inevitable pinch of fear and consternation gripped me. However excitement was overpowering fear. And armed all alone in this unknown land, curiosity became my wings.
Getting off the flight, I looked at the landscape around. A dark grey morning with a huge expanse of land around dotted with red-tiled sloping, green and yellow buildings. Hit by the cold wind, I huddled myself closer and quickly filed into the shuttle bus, along with the others all groggy with sleep and some with hangover. It was already packed and I had to squeeze inside. The bus laboriously circled the tarmac towards the arrival wing. Slowly the skyline came into view and I could make out the bold reverse letters of Ataturk International Airport protruding towards the sky. By the time we reached the terminal, two French women smiled at me profusely and struck up an efficacious conversation. Surprised after I told that I was an Indian, they rambled on saying that now in their heyday, they are on a supposed world tour and enticed by Turkish swings, they are here to enjoy the hamam and the hashish. They waved a bon voyage and fused into the crowd. After clearing my customs, finally my entry got stamped into Turkey.
A language beyond my comprehension and a culture even more enigmatic, I was muddled and still didnt know how to go about, let alone call back home that i reached. But sometimes miracles do happen and Samaritans do come along the way and in that moment it came in the form of a person called Yalacin Suphi Akhyol, a Turkish man just back home from Delhi after a year of his research work at Jawaharlal Nehru University. We met while waiting for our bags. With his help I got the currency exchanged, bought a calling card and finally dialed back home. It was the biggest consolation to hear the familiar voices of the people close to you, even though over a wire spanning thousands of kilometers. He dropped me till the metro express line and told the fellow passengers to help me get down in the Otoger station, the bus terminal. So much for courtesy and hospitality! I still had another leg of the journey pending to Bursa, a long precarious five hour drive by road from Istanbul. Waving him a goodbye through the tinted rain- splattered window, my train hushed out noisily out of the station and he too walked off towards the other line waiting for his train.
Just after I settled down, the man opposite me gave a reassuring smile and instantly turned to look outside. Clad in a tweed jacket, his shoulders hung loosely on the lapels of his jacket. Somehow his eyes betrayed the strained expression of his face. Forking his two fingers across his chin, he seemed to have abstracted in celluloid of space and time. His only sojourn to reality was when he saw me placing the bags and then he withdrew into a recluse. He emanated an impression of being a prodigal son. Just beside us was a loquacious, gormandizing bustling family of four,probably back home from a vacation. The pot- bellied father roared across the phone but somehow the network signal did not assist him much in his ramblings. The mother and the two adolescent daughters, ignorant of everything around continued to chortle and cackle in their private little jokes and goggled over their new bric-a brac that they must have picked up during the trip. Three seats apart, two Chinese with two Olympus cameras slung over their necks, sat as stoic as tombstone without even battling their eyelids. They seemed to be closely guarding the vow of silence.
Slowly the train got filled by a multitude of humanity. Three stations later, an old fat woman after furious jostling through the crowd, strapped in a haggard brown boots came and sat beside me. She looked at me curiously and tried to say something. But the words seemed to have got stuck in between and the lines deepening around her eyes, she looked quite baffled. After a while she uttered something in Turkish. To this I just uttered with an ethereal smile.
"India. Hindistan."
It was as if I poked the sleeping dragon. To this she roared with such deep unconceivable happiness that her cheeks became a high auburn and slapping boisterously on my hand, I could sense a slight regret in her eyes of not being able to speak English. However this did not deter her from speaking . I was simply nonplussed and didnt know what to say. I just kept smiling. But by the time someone could come to our rescue and make our words comprehensible to each other, the loudspeaker buzzed "Otoger metro station" and I told her,
"Bursa"
Braving all odds against her advancing years, she willfully got up and helped me to get down from the train. She hugged me tight and the warmth i felt in that embrace in that cold grey morning in an unknown station in an unknown land was beyond my exposition. I was gravely overwhelmed. Helpless I didnt know how to thank her or even show my gratitude. The train was already hissing, she quickly got in and the doors shut between us. The train moved out of the station and pasting her face on the glass door, she waved me goodbye. I waved her back with a lump in my throat.
Just above the metro station was the colossal bus terminal,Otoger. When i got up, I was at sea. It was a huge circus of buses, cars, gigantic buildings, taxis and their roaring drivers, people scurrying here and there. From some unseen corner the smell of roasted chicken came wafting fused with a peculiar smell of coffee. I thought this must be the famous Turkish coffee the world brags about. Seeing me, a swarm of taxi drivers came running and shouted over each other, probably where I wanted to go. I shouted back,
"No taxi. Nilufer bus."
I looked around frantically for a sign of the Nilufer hoarding or a board, but to no avail. Nilufer was a major bus services company in Turkey and penetrated into every nook and corner of the country. The hoard of taxi drivers looked like the tormentors of gallows. One of them could speak a bit of English. He came forward and asked me where I wanted to go.
"Bursa. No taxi. Nilufer bus."
He looked quite calm and polite. He pointed me towards a grey red-tiled building and I spotted the red lettered 'Nilufer' etched on a huge illuminated blue board. He told me buses run every half an hour and the ticket counter is on the ground floor. I thanked him and walked towards the building.
I got my ticket, tucked my huge black bag in the luggage cabin of the bus already waiting like the gallant elephant, made a call to my supposed friends Deren Yagcir, Sezgi Akdivit and Arda Celik, members of AIESEC in Bursa and who had been facilitating me in every step before the commencement of the internship and told them I would be reaching Bursa around 5.30 pm. They said one of them would be there to pick me up from the Bursa bus terminal, but I still didnt know whom I'll be seeing for the first time.
Finally i got into the bus and was mildly surprised to see the driver strapped in a three piece suit already sitting on his seat. It was a richly decked luxurious bus and the 'bus stewards' were already busy serving the passengers. Seeing me one of them said,
"Merhaba", and in a broken English continued,
"Wel-come, madam, your seat number?"
I said, "7A."
He showed me my seat, which was thankfully by the window, and placed my heavy laptop bag on the space above my seat. The small tv screen in front of me was already flashing some weird Turkish detergent commercial. I thanked him and asked for a hot coffee and relaxing back I waited for the bus to leave and eagerly anticipated the journey ahead.....
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