Rumi in Music: Hamid Hiraad

Khudo

In shab berun zadam, raftand paga maikhoriyam

To dari meikhona raftam dar payi dildoriyam

Dush didan dar in meikhona saf ast az oshiqon

Ei khudo nokhurdam may, man ba shumo rasidam

Yori bo har zi ghami ishq bo tu zi devona shudam

Be khud az khud shudamu, rohi maykhona shudam

On qadar bode menusham, ki shavam mastu kharob.

Na digar dust shinosam, na digar joni sharob

Khush khiromon meravi, ei joni jon, be man marav

Sarvi khiromonam mani, dil dilu jon, be man marav.

In jahon bo tu khush astu on jahon bo tu khush ast

In jahon be man maboshu on jahon be man marav.

Burasud shabho ei dilzoram

Ei ki tu shudi hame doru nadoram

Yorab, yorab, yorab, yorab*

Marhami qalbu dili begharoram

Ei ki tu shudi hame doru nadoram

Yorab, yorab, yorab, yorab

Yorab in dil ishqi tu sabru subotam medihatam

Atri tu vaqte sahar ast busi mijotam medihatam

Yorab in shab baroi nome boron benavis

Du se shab, harse zadan tui khiyobon benavis

Lord

Tonight, I scattered myself outdoors, and loose all my worries

Towards the wine-house I went in search of my beloved

As I walked into a pub, found many lovers in embrace 

O lord, I am too sober, so here I am at your door

O friend, with all the lover's worries, I am madly in love with you

I am not myself, so I search the path towards intoxication

I wish neither sobriety nor riches, but only to serve you

To be infused by your presence and not know other worldly pleasures

O life of my life, with such grace you walk, don't go without me

O heart of my heart, the essence of my being, don't go without me

This world is blessed with you, and that world is blessed with you

In this world do not leave me, and that world don't go without me

~*~*~*~

Rumi in Music: Humayoun Shajarian

Girya Meoyad Maro 

Obe ki az in dida chun khun merezad,
Khun ast, biyo bubin ki chun merezad.
Paidost ki khuni man, chi bardosht kunad,
Dil mekhuradu, dida burun merezad.

Meraviyu, girya meoyad maro

Andar ki benshin, ki boron bugzarad.

Here Come My Tears

These waters that flow from my eyes like blood,
It's blood, come and see for yourself
When my blood flows, what can stop it?
When heart is in pain, the tears come.

When you leave, here come my tears
Sit by me and stop this pain.

18 years of memories...

July is a special month for me. There are many events that took place in this month in various stages of my life; events that play a special role on my memory. Some are bitter, like the death of my paternal grandmother in 2011 and my maternal grandfather in 1996. Some are sweet like my wedding day; last week my wife and I celebrated 12 years of our marriage. Another event, a turning point of sort, that took place in July brings some bittersweet memories. Today, July 21, 2015, marks 18 years since our arrival to America. In 1997, leaving behind her home and all her family in Tajikistan, my mother took my brother and me to the New York City. Two years ago, I published a blogpost, Memories at Equilibrium, about other events in my life stemming from my arrival to this country. Today, I post these photos to remind myself of some of the events; I share these memories with you.

January 1997, we came to Moscow for our interview

Our first New Year in New York

My brother and I at the Rockefeller Center

My study "corner" at our Brighton 5th Street apartment

My first friend in America

Making origami flowers to impress the girls

The happiest Tajik guy in Brooklyn

Ah, turtleneck, I used to make you look good

My brother and I on top of the Statue of Liberty, one of many of our school trips

Another important July day...

Last New Year in our first apartment on Brighton

My first year in college, I wanted to be a doctor

We used to walk in the city like tourists...

and dry our laundry on a clothesline like immigrants...

Our porch at the West 12th Street house where I spent many nights studying

and the backyard, where we jumped into snow 

and our room with my wall of awards from both high schools

and our kitchen where our mother baked bread

We even had a wedding of our cousin at our West 12th Street house...

and our mother cooked for all the guests...

lots of people could be seated in that little room...

"Jamik, bring the bag of rice." "Mom, you are already cooking the rice."

An old friend who left us too early...

New friends at our old house...

My brother is attempting to teach our mother how to ride a bike...

The interior of the original restaurant "Dushanbe" that used to stand on Coney Island and Avenue P.



My cousin and I worked as handymen at the children's camp in Monticello, NY

A skunk that we found stuck between a garbage bin and a bag

My favorite toy at the camp...

Fancy Tajik caterers...

Posing in Las Vegas...

My friend and I with Lilia Stepanova, the contortionist, before she became famous....

1. 
   

My Old Maps

Two hundred fifty two days have passed since my last post. Much has taken place during that time and this medium and space are insufficient to relay all the stories. Leaving my personal life aside, all the things that are taking place around the world would be enough to keep me from writing more. I can not isolate myself anymore. I should return to writing. 

Next to a linguist, a cartographer is a valuable friend that a historian can have. Maps are one of the best tools in studying history. Most of the pre-satellite era maps were approximate (read: inaccurate) representations of the space that we occupy, but with the right person holding those maps, we traversed continents to and fro. Even an illiterate nomad uses maps, not paper or cloth maps, but three dimensional ones in his mind; a tree, a hill, a river or even the stars, those are his legends to follow from pasture to pasture. Our curiosity is our compass.

In the beginning of this summer, I stumbled upon a gallery on Madison Avenue. A banner hang by its entrance that read: The Most Important Maps in American and European History. How could I pass up such opportunity? Besides I had about fifteen minutes to spare before my meeting. And so I ventured into the gallery only to discover the world beyond my imagination. A young lady, whose name I no longer remember, was kind enough to inform me that I was free to walk around and even take photographs. One of the coolest maps I saw was an art work of a French cartographer depicting "Asia at the height of French influence-7 years before the Revolution". I was mesmerized by the work so much that I did not notice the price tag of $25000. 

It was large, very large indeed, clear and well preserved, and right in the center of it was something familiar. The words were in foreign language, but they were familiar to me. I read them silently: Belch, Alsogd, Alshash, Chowarezem, Chorasan, Cabul. But my mind excitedly understood them as Balkh, Sogdiana, Shash (old name of Tashkent), Khorazm, Khorasan, Kabul. I studied the map for few more minutes and recognized a territory that I know as Khanate of Bukhara, established by the Manghits, an Uzbek dynasty. The cartographer depicted the kingdom as Vsbeck Mawaralnahra, which means Usbeks of the Land Beyond the River. And the river of course Amu Darya, which the cartographer noted as Iihun fl., clearly Latinized from Arabic (fl. is abbreviation of fluvio, Latin for river).

It is interesting to note that names of countries and cities appear intermittently in either Latin or Arabic, or some combination of the two. Whereas both the region and city of Balkh are spelled as Belch (Latin? French?), the region and city of Tashkent are clearly in Arabic, Alshash. Region is Fergana, but city is Fargana. Region is Alsogd and city is Samarkand. Bochara is Bukhara, al-Termed is Termez and Badaschan is Badakhshan, but the best of all is al Wachshab fl. that stands for the river Vakhsh. Peculiarly in Khorezm, there are Corcang Minor and Corcang Major, which could correspond to our understanding of Old Urgench and New Urgench. And the most confusing are three variations of names of Tibet: Tobbat Thebet at Thibet. Pick one you like.

Despite the artistic component of the map (mountain chains, wavy rivers, and colorful borders), the map has one easily noticeable error. It shows the rivers Amu and Syr (Sihun als Alshash) flowing into the Caspian Sea (Mers Caspienne) and the Aral Sea is nowhere to be found on the map. I hope, time permitting, to make a list of all the geographic locations as depicted on this map and find their modern equivalent.

In the meantime, if you thought that the above map was cool, check out what I saw next. This one was the work of an Italian by name of Giacomo Gastaldi, and the price tag was ten times higher than the one before. This map also dated from much earlier period, two hundred years earlier (Gastaldi died in 1566) and it is called: NOVA ET ACVRATA TOTIVS ASIӔ TABVLA. This basically translates to "New and Accurate Map of Entire Asia".

Artistically speaking, the Italian is more skillful than the French (look at the caravans of camels, elephants and rhynos(?) in India, and those bright orange tents of the Mongolians!), but his map too shows the Iaxartes (Amudarya) and Oxus (Syrdarya) flowing into the Caspian Sea (MARE CASPIVM) without any depiction of the Aral Sea. This makes me think that the Aral Sea is a new phenomenon, or simply, the cartographer did not have sufficient information about the region. 

Actually, the fact that all the names of locations appear in Latin indicates that Gastaldi did not have access to non-Western sources. In fact, his MAV-RE-NACHER is on the other side of Syrdarya, instead of describing territories between the two rivers. Gastaldi's description Samarchand magni Tamberlanis quondam sedes (Samarkand, the former seat of the great Tamerlane) may also indicates that his information was a bit out of date. This was not by accident though, as the cartographer was born ninety five years after the death of the Mongol conqueror. In fact, by 1500s power of the Timurids had waned and Uzbeks under Shayban had began their penetration into the Central Asian Proper. Constant wars in the area would have prevented not only the Europeans like Gastaldi from traveling into but also the merchants traveling out of the region. If there is no trade, there is no news.

This map too would be worth the time to match all the names of towns and cities to their current equivalents. Many of these are beyond recognition, once again because of the source of information; it is very likely that the Latin names represent ancient settlements, perhaps even from the time of Ptolemy that were no longer extant when Gastaldi was working on the map. Obviously Bvccara is Bukhara and Charassan is Khorasan, and it it possible that incorrectly placed Chendibadau is actually Konibodom. Agriandisan may be Andijan, and though hard to believe, it is probable that Cicugiend is modern Khujand.

Whatever the current names may be of the names of settlements, cities, rivers, deserts, mountains and so on, one thing is certain, the map is really beautiful. Though not exactly "acvrata", it still looks like a lot of work went into making of the "Asiӕ Tabvla". If you don't recognize any names, or learn anything interesting, you can at least enjoy the workmanship of the cartographers. I do think the creative parts of the maps only add to their value, but I can't explain the big gap between their prices. If I sold Gastaldi's map, I could buy a really nice house in Omaha.

   





 

Update from friend, via sms: News of the existence of the Aral Sea only reached Europe in the 17th century and caused amazement / Previous Western travelers had somehow overlooked it, and it was a surprise to discover such a huge unknown body of water so close to the edge of Europe. / It is much more likely that the name dates from the 17th century. Abu'l Ghazi Khan, who died in 1664, wrote that he was proclaimed Khan in the country called Aral, "which is one the course of the Amu that falls into the sea". The term Aral appears a little later in the form of "Aral More" on a Russian chart dated 1697

My friend also offered the following website for additional information on the Aral: www.karakalpak.com/stanaral.html

Second Update (Sep. 30, 2014):

Four days ago, people at NASA published two images of the Aral Sea, which you can view below. The images were part of an article titled The Aral Sea Loses Its Eastern Lobe and represent the rapidity of the evaporation of this body of water. Global warming is only one of the reasons for lose of water in the Aral, the other is over irrigation of both of its tributaries, the Amu and Syr rivers. This is one of the worst ecological legacies from the Soviets and unfortunately, current governments of the countries surrounding the Aral are not doing anything to fix the problem. In another ten years, when the remaining pools of the Aral Sea are no more, the Tour/Jaillot and Gastaldi maps (see above) will not be so erroneous.

Random thoughts at the end of the year...

This post does not have much content as I am still coping with my mother’s passing. I immerse myself in my work to keep my mind occupied; “7 to 7” is my often used phrase when I am asked about my schedule at work. This has detrimental effect, as I have noticed, on my other responsibilities, to say nothing of the effect on my health, and ironically on my memory—chunks of time are simply gone, I forget fast and...

To remedy the situation, I turn to writing; not that I purport to be any good at it, but when vocal therapy isn't an option for me, writing seems to work. That and music of course.

I am listening to Caruso performed by the late Pavarotti. Six years have passed by since he died, but it feels as if it happened so recently. The song I am listening to now is one of the few that reaches into my soul and plucks a nerve that causes me to shed tears...manly tears of course. As I write this post, perhaps last one for this year, the music keeps playing over and over in the background. It reminds me about the swiftness of the passage of time; how we stand dumbfounded at the realization that we didn't do what we wanted to do or didn't say what we wanted to say, back then when we had the chance. Now it's all too late and we are only left with memories.

I don't remember who instilled love of opera in me, but I think it happened when I came to this country sixteen years ago. Finding myself in nostalgia at some point, I began listening to "opera" of my grandfather's generation, the ever hated shashmaqom. Oh yes, as kids we used to despise taking afternoon naps because that meant inadvertently listening to an old lady singing about her own lost love through the loudspeakers of radio. The soul of shashmaqom is as old as the sands of time, even if the genre itself dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. Next to love songs, performers of shashmaqom sing about friendship, as there is a blurry line between friends and lovers. One of my favorite songs is adaptation of poem of Mirzo Tursunzoda; the rhythm of the words feels so natural to the genre.

То тавонӣ дӯстонро гум макун,              (Toe tavoni doustonro goom makun) 

Дӯстони меҳрубонро гум макун.            (Doustoni mehrubonro goom makun)

Дар ҷаҳон бе дӯст будан мушкил аст, (Dar jahon be doust budan mushkil ast)

Мушкилосонкункасонро гум макун.       (Mooshkilosonkoonkasonro goom makun)

Try best, of friends you have, to lose them not

The friends who are kind to you, lose them not

In this world it is hard to go by without friends

Those who ease your hardships, lose them not

I never fully learned to speak the language of my ancestors, and I am afraid my ambitions to catch up with my contemporaries are all in vain now. Today, I have lived more in this foreign country I now call home than in a country I was born. This is why I have never seen in Tajik language such a heavy word as mooshkilosonkoonkasonro. Perhaps, there are many such complex words, but I know them not. The word can be broken down into: mooshkil (hardship), oson (easy, to ease), koon (to do), kas (person), on (suffix denoting action, like English “er” in teacher), and ro (suffix denotaing plural form). I am certain I made translational inexactitudes, but that is beside the point. Exact meaning of the word mooshkilosonkoonkasonro is evident to any speaker of the Tajik language; one does not need to break it apart in order to grasp its exact message. Another thing I am certain about is that such individuals, as the word describes, are actually rare in our lives.

I have never had many friends. Those who can be trusted with your life’s secrets, its pains and joys, are few indeed. More difficult than making friends is the experience of losing them. Such instances shatter one’s well-being, in some cases permanently. Tears, instant form of free therapy, are not substitute for super glue.

Tajik language has many words for a friend, some of which are synonymous with lover: doost, oshno, rafiq, yor, jura, hamsafar, anis, urtoq, and many others. Some of these words came from different languages such as Arabic or Turkic languages. Beauty of Tajik language is in its ability to adapt to constant change; it takes only the best of what others have to offer, leaving aside negative aspects of foreign culture. Whereas others see differences between the language and its speakers, I see similarities. For me, it is not important who spoke the word first, ancestors of the Tajik people or those from whom they adopted a word. What matters for me is our ability to connect to others using something as common as a single word. The world is already full of negativity, there is too much hatred and disdain, why add to it? 

Recent events at the Independence Square of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, have been less than friendly, to say the least. Every news report one reads (or watches) is filled with such rhetoric as “heroes of Maidan this...” or “liberators at Maidan that...” Ukrainian maidan is synonymous to the Tajik maidon, both mean large public gathering space in the center of settlement (village, town, city). I won’t go into the history of this word (nor into the politics of Ukraine); suffice it to say, I find it amazing that both Tajiks and Ukrainians have at least one word in common between their languages. Instead, I want to use this opportunity to present readers of this blog with a short list of words, which always fascinated me by a mere commonality throughout so many languages. Let's start with the supposedly first word we utter when we are brought into this world: mother.

English is a Germanic language, thus “mother” comes from Mutter. Interestingly, the way Germans pronounce the word (moo-tAr) is not too different from the way Tajiks do: modar. You don’t have to be an expert to see the similarity with other languages: madre (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian), μητέρα (mitera, Greek), мать (mat’, Russian), мати (maty, Ukrainian), ਮਾਤਾ (mata, Punjabi), मां (mam, Hindi), etc.

Next to “mama” we have our “dada”. Tajik падар (padar) is English “father” or German Vater (fa-tEr), Spanish/Italian padre, Greek πατέρας (pateras), Ukrainian батько (bat’ko), Belorussian бацька (bats’ka), Hindi पिता (pita), and so on.    

Perhaps, that’s not enough to fascinate your minds, and it does not really stop there, not for me at least. Tajik word for “daughter” is духтар, which is pronounced dookh-tar. This is not far from German Tochter.  If you look closely, you can see the similarity with Armenian դուստր (dustr), Greek θυγατέρα (thygatera), Indonesian putri, Finish tytär, Czech dcera, or Ukrainian (dochka).

If for a moment you think I speak all these languages, well...I won’t stop you from doing that. I have learned about the importance of linguistics in the study of history early on. Next to my fascination of nomadic cultures of the Eurasian Steppe, my favorite past time is learning about the Indo-European language family. I only speak three languages and only one of them fluently, but to illustrate my point about linguistic connections of words “mother”, “father” and “daughter”, I had to use Google-translator. It’s a very useful tool. As an exercise, look up the word “brother”; in Tajik this word is pronounced ba-ro-dar (бародар).

The word “brother” connotes unity in any language, but it is not the only word to have such a meaning. English word "band" refers to "a strip of cloth used to tie things together". This is identical to Tajik банд (band), from which the verb бастан (bastan, "to tie") derives. Another meaning of the word refers to "a group of people who stand together" either to play music or make trouble, or make trouble by playing music. Incidentally, English verb "to stand" means "to occupy a place," that is to stand your ground, or settle. Thus, the suffix "-istan" in Tajikistan, refers to "the land occupied by Tajiks”; perhaps a misnomer, as the country also includes Uzbeks, and at least during the Soviet era included Armenians, Germans, Koreans, and many other ethnic groups. In fact, English "to stand" comes from the same root as Tajik истодан (istodan).

Whereas it is not too hard to see the similarity between "to stand" and istodan, there are words in English and Tajik languages which come from the same root and yet look very different, and pronounced differently. One of my favorites is the word for "cleaning substance" that is to say, soap, which in Tajik is собун (so-boon). It is hard to see similarity between soap and soboon, especially when you consider that English word comes from German Seife. What I have learned through my curios adventures into the world of linguistics is that we speak in consonants, not in vowels. Meaning, if you want to find the similarity, look for consonants, and in this case "soap" and "Seife" have the same first letter; the next best clue is "p" and "f" which are actually phonetic cousins (I'm sure there's technical word for it). There are letters in every language which are "interchangeable" during speech; consider English "hamburger" and Russian гамбургер (gum-bur-ger). Or for the case of "f" and "p" consider unit of measurement фунт (foont, Russian) vs pound (English), or even the difference between Persian and Farsi. I think I am making it sound more complicated than I mean it to be. Here is how soap pronounced in other languages:

Arabic: صابون (saboon)

Armenian: սապոն (sapon)

Bulgarian: сапун (sapoon)

Catalan: sabó

Dutch: zeep (noun) zepen (verb)

French: savon

Greek: σαπούνι (sapouni)

Hindi: साबुन (sabuna)

Italian: sapone

Japanese: ソープ (sopu)

Korean: 비누 (binu)

Latvian: ziepes

Mongolian: саван (savan)

Portuguese: sabão

Romanian: săpun

Spanish: jabón

Turkish: sabun

Urdu: صابن (sabun)

Vietnamese: xà phòng

Welsh: sebon

  

What is clear to me is that the substance, as well as the word, are universal. But soap is not the only word of its kind. Grass is the most widespread plant on our planet, and the one type of grass that is widely used by us is sugarcane. More properly, we use the product of sugarcane, which is sugar...duh! Like soap, sugar is universally known, although some parts of the civilized world could use less of the former and more of the latter. The word is шакар (shakar) in Tajik language, and we can already see phonetic cousins with the English sugar: sh/s and k/g. Here is another list:

Arabic: سكر (sukar)

Armenian: շաքար (shak'ar)

Azerbaijani: şəkər

Basque: azukre

Bulgarian: захар (zukhar)

Belorussian: цукар (tsoo-kar)

Catalan: sucre

Czech: cukr

Danish: sukker

Dutch: suiker

Estonian: suhkur

French: sucre

Finnish: sokeri

German: Zucker

Greek: ζάχαρη (zachari)

Hebrew: סוּכָּר (soo-kar)

Hindi: शक़्क़र (shaqqara)

Irish: siúcra

Italian: zucchero

Japanese: シュガー (shuga)

Lithuanian: cukrus

Latvian: cukurs

Mongolian: элсэн чихэр (elsen chikher)

Norwegian: sukker

Polish: cukier

Portuguese: açúcar

Romanian: zahăr

Spanish: azúcar

Turkish: şeker

Ukrainian: цукор (tsoo-kor)

Sometimes the connections are not obvious, so in order to see them, you have to remember two simple rules: (1) we speak in consonants and (2) each consonant letter has a phonetic cousin. I consider the following letters as phonetic cousins: p/b, p/f, f/v, m/n, g/k, s/sh, sh/ch, s/z and others. To explain how I apply the two rules, here is an illustration. You may say how is Mongolian "elsen chikher" and Tajik "shakar" are connected, and in order to see the connection you have to break each word into syllables. 

Mongolian word "elsen" means sand, in this case, "white sand". So, our connection is on the second word: chikher. Take away all the vowels, you have ch-kh-r. Do the same to the Tajik word, and you get sh-k-r. Or remove the vowels from the Ukrainian word and you have ts-k-r. More than half of the remaining consonants should leave enough clues for making a connection. I don't know, perhaps this is not convincing, but in my mind, it works very well.

These are my random thoughts that keep my mind busy in time of stress, or distress. I often don't know how to end things I start, as the case is with this post. Perhaps a good song will do it better. It is time to prepare for the New Year, and say good-bye to the old one. Don't forget where you came from, but don't dwell on your past, especially if it brings you much pain. Perhaps it is easier said than done, but I do feel much better after spending my time writing this post; no matter how random its content.

Happy New Year!