The sun has set on the British Empire. But the British are everywhere. When in France, I read about the British trying to buy châteaux in rural France. Yeah, anything in rural France will resemble a château for the city dwellers. Later I read about the same phenomenon happening in Spain. British were buying vacation homes in the beach cities. So when my British acquaintance mentioned about her vacation home in rural Turkey, I was surprised. On questioning further, I found there were other British in that area where she has invested!
This piece of conversation was supposed to be the small talk or the icebreaker before we moved forward with the agenda. The way it went, the small talk became the agenda. But all conversations end in new learning. I just had to wait patiently for the lesson to emerge out of the conversation. She was very excited about talking about Turkey. Life has a leisurely pace in that part of the world. The vegetables and fruits taste how it should and not like insecticides. The air is fresh. All this add up to indescribable happiness.
Despite all the above good things about the life in Turkey, she also recounts the funny aspect of the country. There are many incomplete things in Turkey. They live in a well-organized community. But the access road leading to their community is not complete. The road ends abruptly, and they have to finish the last leg on the mud road. I had to suppress my smile because it brought memories of a famous resort in Coorg. There was hardly any way to enter the main property. Once you enter the property, you enter a different world. All of us has seen this in India. There are many things incomplete about things in India. So I could relate.
This incompleteness is a feature everywhere in Turkey. She has a similar experience with the pavement. Without any warning, the pavement ceases to exist. It is the same case with tracks for jogging. The abruptness and incompleteness go hand in hand. Despite all this, she summed up the experience. We regain our childhood when we visit there. It was a beautiful way to describe the experience. When we are children, we were not bothered about finishing what we started. The act of doing kept us going. We were happy with all those unfinished projects. There were no regrets.
Photo Courtesy: Mehmet Bilgin
hahahaha - without any warning the pavement ceases to exist. Don't we know that feeling exactly? Beautiful photo. Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteThat is correct.
DeleteI had taken the picture from flickr and I have also mentioned the photographer(with the link) under the heading Photo Courtesy.