The white line on the Eastern horizon is very distinct from the black and growing. It is time for fajr and sleep heavy eyes are now wide awake and refreshed after an early morning dinner of kofte and coffee. A fitful sleep took over almost on take off. The darkness hangs heavy in the sky and over the earth, though slowly the light is growing but stars are still distinct over the horizon.
I stare at my screen, it is not the wide range of the latest movies which are available that fascinate me or even the music or the games. It is the route which is fascinating. I steal glances outside. My window is facing east and I am eagerly awaiting the sunrise but at the same time the screen attracts me with its magical names. I am fascinated by the thought that below me lies the world. A world of mystic and legend, of history and stories, so many cultures, traditions, languages. A beautiful, colourful world now reposing tucked in comfortably in the bedclothes of the dark that still enfolds the earth. The screen offers a geography lesson. I look at place names rarely heard and wonder about them. Ashgabat, Buxoro, Astrakhan. I want to say the names aloud. Feel the taste of them on my tongue. But perhaps the Romanian gentleman to my left might have doubts about my sanity. I keep silent but in my mind I am savouring them. They are far away yet near enough to be on this route map. Air travel has made the world so small. The places one thought one would never see in life are just a short flight away.
We have been flying over Iran. Tabriz lies somewhere to our South East. It is a sobering thought because the routes for all flights have changed due to the conflicts on the ground. Earlier all flight to Turkey or Europe entered Turkey from Mosul in Iraq. The conflicts, the killing, the danger, the fear, the deprivation of those on the ground not very far away fills me sadness. I want to shout stop stop stop I want to shout it out so loud that it reaches every corner of the globe. STOP! When I allow myself to think of what man is capable of doing to man the thought fills me with agony. There on the route before me are names no longer the stuff of legends but names which seem to take on a new life and are writhing before me in agony. Basra, Baghdad, Mosul, Damascus, Aleppo. Once the cities of dreams, centres of ancient civilisations, cities which are carrying the ruins and histories of so much within them only to be destroyed and ruined once more. Barbarically destroyed in a world that stresses upon being civilised. A claim which it can never make good while there is a single drop of innocent blood being shed.
Weaving Tapestries, Painting Pictures, Dreaming Dreams 