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99 pages

English

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On his way from Tangiers to China, the medieval Moorish traveller Ibn Battuta arrives in Konya, Turkey where the legendary dervish Rumi had lived, danced and died. More than half a century may have passed since his death, but his poetry remains alive, inscribed in every stone and tree and pathway. Rumi's followers entrust Ibn Battuta with a manuscript of his life stories to spread word of the mystic on his travels. As Battuta reads and recites these tales, his listeners discover their own lives reflected in these stories-fate has bound them, and perhaps you, to Rumi. A Mirrored Life reaffirms the magical powers of storytelling, making us find Rumi in each of our hearts.

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Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	15 janvier 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184006780
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0600€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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RABISANKAR BAL

A Mirrored Life
The Rumi Novel
Translated from the Bengali by ARUNAVA SINHA
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
CONTENTS
A Note on the Author
A Note on the Translator
By the same author
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Follow Random House
Copyright
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Rabisankar Bal is a Bangla novelist and short-story writer, with over fifteen novels, five short-story collections, one volume of poetry and one volume of literary essays. Born in 1962, he has been writing for thirty years. His novel The Biography of Midnight won the West Bengal government s Sutapa Roychowdhury Memorial Prize. Dozakhnama , acknowledged by the late doyen of Bengali literature, Sunil Gangopadhyay, as the finest novel of 2010, won the West Bengal government s Bankimchandra Smriti Puraskar. He has edited a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto s writings translated into Bangla. A journalist by profession, he lives in Kolkata and passionately follows literature, music, painting, and world cinema.
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATOR

Arunava Sinha translates contemporary and classic Bengali fiction into English. He has seventeen published translations to his name. Born and educated in Kolkata, he lives in New Delhi.
By the same author
Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell
Michael Madhusudan Dutt
Rabindranath Tagore
Jibanananda Das
The illuminated life of Anatolia is dedicated to these three lights of Bengal
ONE
You have not read this particular kitab of mine before, though some of you may have read my account of thirty years of travel. People refer to it as my travels now, but actually I was on a pilgrimage. Wandering from one land to another over thirty years, it struck me that there is no end to pilgrim spots on this earth; you could even say that the world itself is a place where pilgrims gather. Shaikh ibn Battuta salutes the earth and wind and air and water and fire, again and again.
Touch me if you don t believe me, I am indeed Ibn Battuta. I do have a longer name, of course. Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Lawati al-Tanji ibn Battuta. I left Tangiers in the Hijri year 725, 1324-25 by the Christian calendar. Passing through a succession of towns, the first city I was astonished by was Alexandria. I felt I had arrived in a blue city. This was where I met Imam Burhanuddin al-Arz, from whom I heard of Maulana for the first time. The secret manuscript that I am about to read out to all of you features Maulana as its principal character. Forgive me if my idiom seems ragged rather than the language of literature. From what I have seen and understood of Maulana, he cannot be captured by the language in which books are written. Can you put the strains of a flute in words? But still I have tried, if only for myself, to create a halting narrative of this radiance. Maulana s life is like a patterned quilt. I shall be gratified if I can present even one or two of these patterns here in this majlis to all of you. Allah be merciful. All praise to the Almighty, the Keeper of the World, the Supreme Lord of Judgement Day. We pray only to you, we seek help only from you. Show us the simplest path. Show us the path of those whom you have blessed, not the path of those whom you are furious with, or of those who have lost their way.
You want to travel in different lands, don t you? Imam Burhanuddin asked me one day.
- Yes, such is my desire.
- When did this fancy overtake you, my friend?
- I had been to the hamam for a bath late one night. There was no one there. It was the night of the full moon, which floated in the water of the hamam. I played for a long time with the moon in the water. I ve never wanted to live at home since then.
The Imam burst into laughter. - No one can stay home once the moon has struck them. Now that you have left, travel the world.
To tell you the truth, I had no intentions of travelling far and wide at that time. My only desire was to visit Mecca. But the Imam sahib stoked my fire. Off you go, then, he said, Go and meet my brother Fariduddin in Hindustan. I have another brother in Sindh, Ruknuddin ibn Zakaria, and one more in China. Tell them about me. At once I determined to visit all these places, and to take news of the Imam sahib to his brothers.
That was the beginning of thirty years of wandering. One day, I arrived in Anatolia in the course of my travels. Anatolia. The name called out to me like an evil planet. A song was concealed in it. I had also decided that I would have to visit Konya. As the Imam sahib had said, this city was the Maulana s playground. The amazing whirling dance was born here. I passed the fort at Tavas and the town of Milak to arrive at Konya. A city of water and of gardens, Konya. It rose after a cataclysmic flood, Konya. St Paul, along with Barnabas and his disciple Timothy had come here. The Christians village conference took place here. Even after being ransacked by the Crusaders, Konya was revived as the capital of the Seljuk sultans. Not even the invasion of the Mongols could vanquish the city. And what about the people of Konya? The entire world seemed to have gathered here. Besides Turks, there were Greeks, Arabs, Indians, Iranians, Armenians, Venetians, even some Chinese. It was from this Konya that the glow of love spread to Samarqand and Bukhara. So Maulana wrote.
I heard many stories of Maulana s magical life from the Imam sahib of Alexandria. He told me, Maulana s poetry is written on every rock and every tree on the road to Konya. But you must discover it. And listen, examine the inns carefully. That s where the soul of Anatolia is hidden. Maulana said this world is an inn, where we wait in the depths of winter for the first day of spring, when the ice will start melting, the road will be visible, and our caravan will be on its way again. Imam sahib used to say such strange things. One day he told me, Anatolia isn t just a place, another name for the soul is Anatolia.
Anatolia got a new lease of life when the Seljuk sultan Alauddin Kayqubad ascended the throne in 1219 AD . There was a wave of construction, with new mosques, walls and inns coming up. Trade routes radiated out from Konya towards Constantinople, Aleppo, Mosul, Tabriz-and even further, to the port of Sinop on the Black Sea, to Mediterranean harbours. And countless inns came up on either side of these roads. Konya was an important centre of trade then-its only comparison could be with Baghdad. When I reached Konya sixty years after Maulana s death, it was just as lively, as full of spirit. Konya would awake to the sounds of water being splashed on the roads after the azaan at dawn. Then came the water-carriers, transporting water in goatskin bags on camelback from the canals outside the city to every home. The washermen rushed between houses to collect dirty clothes. Masons squatted by the road, waiting for work. Konya was coming alive. The lilting tones of children reading out aloud from the Quran could be heard. The fragrant vapours rising from the water suffused the hamam. Shops opened for business, deals and bargaining gathered momentum. A lunatic walked past, muttering to himself. A girl s face appeared in the window of a house, the window emptying as soon as someone s eye fell on it. Only the memory of a beauty floated about in Konya s air. All writing is actually a short-lived attempt to hold on to memory. The secret manuscript that I am about to read from is also a memory, the memory of Maulana, whom I have never seen. But how can I write about my memories of a person I have never seen? I have asked myself this question repeatedly. And a voice has asked me in return, Do you love Maulana?
- Yes.
- How?
- I don t know.
- Let s say you are lost completely as you love, you do not exist anymore. Is that how you love Maulana?
- I don t know.
- Then begin, Shaikh. This ignorance will lead you to Maulana eventually. You have to move forward so that you can cook yourself.
- Cook myself?
- Do not question everything, infidel. You will understand as you write. You are the food, you are the one who eats, you are the cook.
Many years later, after I reached Tangiers on my way back home, I finished dictating the accounts of my travel to a scribe, after which I began to write Maulana s life story myself. I felt I would have to write it in my own hand, for I have heard the strains of the flute, the melody that weeps to go back home.
My learned readers, you know that there are stories even before there are stories. That is why I must first tell you about Konya. This kitab has its origins in a munaqib, a book about holy people. I must also tell you how it reached me. Unless you know this you will not be able to trust the unworthy Ibn Battuta. Moreover, I believe that before tasting a story, it is necessary to know a few things about its history and geography. For instance, the climate of the area. Unless you are aware of the weather patterns in Anatolia, much of what Maulana said would make no sense.
I was staying at a caravanserai with some merchants. The inn was named Horozluhan. There were many inns on either side of the road to Anatolia, for this was the route along which people travelled long distances for trade. Beside rooms for people, there were also arrangements for horses and camels. Even a small mosque to pray in. You had to pass through an enormous gate inlaid with intricate designs to enter the inn. I was to share a room on the first floor with three merchants. Two Arabs and one Greek, but all three knew Persian. We started talking of different things, and one of the stories I heard in the course of the conversation made a permanent spot for itself in my head. The Greek merchant told the tale. His name was Kostis Palamas. His style of storytelling was admirable, you had to hold your breath as you listened.
According to Kostis Palamas, the stor