seven

I reached the procession street. The street of old Babel where they were making their celebrations and rituals. Then I reached the palace.

Wall after wall, gate after gate, I passed into the dazzling corners of Nebuchadnezzar's southern palace.
Seven walls to embrace 5 squares. Seven gates Ishtar passed to visit the underworld.

in every gate, Ishtar would take off something she wore. She asked the guardians of the gates why she should do that the myth say. They answered to reveal the truth.

When I passed the last gate, I found Saddam's palace above a hill. They say under his regime, he ordered to renew the buildings of Babel and to put his name on the bricks.

Were all these buildings real?
I saw dead palms.
I felt sad.

I felt disappointed but when I came closer to Saddam's palace and I saw many young people walking happily in its gardens I remembered how much people of Hilla are practical, they made it a hotel. Wow.

I hope that new palms will be planted here.

Eros and Thanatos

War is like love, it always find a way.
Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)

In a French film of Claude Chabrol I forgot its name but it was about Hiroshima, a love story between a French man and a Japanese woman started with the time of war. They were both married. Both separated from their families. Forced to spend some time together to pass the dark moments of war they fall in love. When the war ends and they started to leave each other he asked her:

- Would it be possible that we meet again?
- Only if another war starts. She answered. And the film ended.

I asked someone who saw the film with me, what is the relation of War and Love? He answered: in wars we get rid for a while from our commitments, feel little free, a love story may find its nest in our frightened little hearts.
Is war a stress that affects our psychic development causing us to regress to an earlier stage of development? Make us more nostalgic to our safe mother's womb? Does it uncover the hidden in our psych? Take off the persona (=mask) from our feigned social personalities?
Questions I never sure of their answers but the Sumerians chose a Goddess, Inana, to be called later Ishtar, as the Goddess of love and war.

Celebrate the most monstrous Goddess
Ishtar who covers her body with glee and wears love
She wore lust and love
She is filled with life and kindness and seductive to desire
Ishtar wore lust and love
In her lips lies honey and the life is in her mouth
When she comes happiness become completed
And she is wonderful if she wore a veil
Her shape is beautiful, her eyes are glistening
Destiny is brought to everything she holds with her hands
Rich in desire, sexual delight and lovers pleasure
Who is as great as she? Who?
Her orders never shake, awesome filled with radiation
Ishtar is special among other Gods
Her order is the reign
All humans are dread of her
From all the women's name, her name is the only one
from Stephan, F. J.; Hymn to Ishtar, (James, B. Prichard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Text), 1969.

Ishtar. Seems familial to you? Its Sumerian name is Inana. It is a name for a planet called nowadays Venus. Its worship extended from Iraq to the Mediterranean areas.
Because the Babylonians loved the study of stars and planets they chose a planet or a star for each of their Gods and Goddesses. Venus was Ishtar. The moon was her father "Seen". The word Ishtar means in the Akkadian language as: "the star which appears before aurora, before dawn". Her older name, the Sumerian name Inana, means literally "the Lady of the Sky".
The Goddess Ishtar passed in different stages: she was a teenager once longing for a husband, then a wife more confident in herself, and finally the widow which is the most important of her phases, in which she lost her husband Dumozi who went to his trip in the underworld.

The original Ishtar gate is in Germany. But here in Babel I found the original context. Everything was speaking to me.

Loneliness of Babel Theatre

I entered into a world of another time. From my very first steps I felt isolated from my place and time. A thrilling lust of what I may find was running on my spines. What I feared the most is that a wild dog may suddenly jump in front of me and started his/her angry defense on his place that I invaded. All I was hearing was sounds of birds.
I found a stairs. I stopped. Took a breath. Went up to see this:



When I finally reached this my heart sank deep into some sorrow when I saw the theatre backstage. I remember seeing the Algerian musical group practicing here their piece of music from Sahara before they would perform their piece at this theatre stage on that same day in the 90s when the security man asked me to leave Babel as soon as possible or he would do something "BAD" to me that would make me regret my intensions. My intensions were that I ask the Algerian group to give me some notes of their music pieces. Or just to talk to them.
But it was prohibited in the previous regime to talk to a non-Iraqi without permission from the regime.
An Algerian violinist came and saluted me. He must have heard what we were saying. He invited me in the backstage. I went and saluted all the musicians and I told them about my love to Algeria and to Sahara music. They told me that they got no notes to give me, and that they play without notes. They asked me to play a piece of Iraqi music for them before their show would start. I played in their Aud the well known Iraqi song "Wif Raghum… Bech chain…(=and their departure… had made me crying…)". I left the backstage wishing them good show. Saw the angry security man who told me to leave Babel at once. I left at once with sorrow.

Seeing the backstage destroyed was better than seeing it living with Saddam's security men. At least the backstage can take the shape it wants. This is an early stage of freedom when some chaos rules the place. Let us just hope that order will come as fast as possible and theatre backstage would be full again of the chaos of artists and not the chaos of neglect.

From that scene my tour continued to see the whole theatre. I didn't know whether to feel sorry or lucky that I was alone at that time. This big theatre which makes me feel tiny.


After leaving the theatre, and leaving my sense of anxiety, that sence which came from that sad annoying memory, and the fear of encountering a wild dog, after leaving all that I looked at the theatre from a distance and felt strange of how much it is neglected. No sign, nor any guide to tell you about its history. But in spite of that, it looks wonderful. Take care of yourself dear theatre. Let the 2 fallen angels of Babel taking care of you too.

Back To Babel

The sky was not clear. It was a mixture of clouds and heavy wind with dust, a mixture enough to convince me of doing some adventure. I was few kilometers away from Babel. A Taxi would take me there in 15 minutes only. Was it logical that I don't try it? The US and the Polish army had left the area of Babel. Was it logical that they chose this area to put their heavy metals on? Iraq is full of empty lands. Why should Babel be a military area for the US or Polish army?

The Iraqi army man welcomed me and showed me the way and gave me the OK to take pictures. I saw a long street in front of me and I walked.

Oleander aroma mixed with a sight of old clay buildings pouring up into my nose to be dissolved in my mind in a way that harmonized by heartbeats up to the fast rhythm of love.


Some buildings were having open doors. Nothing to tell you what this building is. Neither sign nor any tourist guide. You walk and you discover. I interred a building from a back door not knowing whether this is permissible or not.

That made my adventure more thrilling. I was so happy to be so near to this greatness. Can touch it. Can smell it. Even the trees and flowers seem different.

A little by little, the ordinary buildings, the ordinary feelings I got were changing into a magical one. Hypnos, that God, was hypnotizing me. Mesmer, that magnet, was mesmerizing me. My steps were going after my steps. My breathes were getting faster. My eyes was colored with the scenes while tears were evapourizing in an aroma of love. Of belonging. Of nostalgia.

Ma Jen

One night I went to a mad inn
I saw a huge tit old maiden
She was like wine 1944 made in
She took my mind and dissolved it in her glass


Al Abouthi'ya is a type of Iraqi poetry written in our slang language which is a mixture of Arabic, ruminants of old languages, and words from different civilizations that lived once, or invaded once, in Iraq like Persian, Turkish, and England. Some few other origins of words also exist like the word "Timman" which we use in Iraq to describe rice and it is of Chinese origin.
Al Abouthi'ya may have its origins from the Sumerian poetry which sometimes use a similar technique. The technique is to use four lines, the first three end in the same word sound which would have a different meaning each time. The last line usually ends more freely and uniting the above three lines in a meaning.

Al Maw'wal, is a way of singing. It is a slow recitation of an Abouthi'ya with the aid of usually only one instrument.
Ya beh…..
Aakh ya ya beh….
Yuba ma jen…..
Ya heefi i3la lyali ib3idan ma jen,
El hamid lallah bjifak el 3akil ma jen
Ana bicheet u min dumo3i jbal ma jen
3ala wlifi il misha w ib3ad 3alaya
Shoon bi'ya…

Oh father,
Oh brother,
Father MA JEN (a word that was used in the poem to denote three different meanings: didn't come, didn't become crazy, and surged)
What a lost the nights went away and didn't return
Thanks God the mind didn't go away with you
Because of my tears, mountains started surging
Crying on my love who went and left me alone
What to do with myself?

Worth to be Read by All

Novels that teach a lesson of life

One poet said once that he would not write a poem that he will feel he doesn't want his mother, daughter, sister or wife to read.
What is the value of what you write if you will be shy if your mother know about it?
That poet was from Russia and I am not sure that he is "Rassol Hamzatov".

Look at the cover of this book



it seems that the Arabic publication companies are knowing finally how to make a cover. It is so nice. It is the cover of 3 short stories of the Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov. The second story in entitled "The First Teacher" which is about a teacher called Diochene, who came to his village of origin early in the 20th century to open a school. The villagers didn't understand why that should happen and they did not help. Actually they fought him. He built the school from his salary and convinced the children, sometimes against their parents' will, to come to school. He was walking every morning around the village to collect the children.

Altinai was a girl. She was an orphan raised by her aunt who was abusing her. Altinai loved the school which her aunt was very against. Her aunt, one day, brought a man living in the mountain and promised him that Altinai would be his wife. The next day Altinai was at school when the mountain man came to school and took her. Diochene tried to prevent him but he failed. The mountain man broke the teachers arm. The next day Diochene visited the mountain with two army men for Altinai, the mountain man was imprisoned, Altinai was sent to Moscow to complete her studies.

Altinai became a professor that her village, Korkoryo, became pride of and named a newly opened secondary school after her name. She wanted the name of the school to be Diochene.

This is worth to be read by all.

Novels that make you frown

He took me to 1949 with a novel named "a spit in the face of life" and it was about incest. A father whose desire for his daughter is confusing, while the daughter is not innocent. A mixture that was not easy to read. The deep psychological insight is annoying. Fwad Al Tikarli had made me feel surprised for the existence of such a frankness in Iraqi literature. A thing that I didn't know is existing. "a spit in the face of life" is a short novel with easy language.


"the sand ring" was written in 1990s talking about a young man who decided to make his choice in spite of the traditions of the Iraqi society of marriage. He was threatened to be killed but he was stubborn. Actually he was stupid. Some say that Fwad Al Tikarli is among the first who were affected by the "existentialism" movement in Baghdad and that this novel talks about the choice of the protagonist to "exist". Anyway it left me with some anxiety.

"the no question and the no answer" is another novel written between 2005 and 2006 by Al Tikarli. It is about an Iraqi father living in the 1990s and suffering from poverty. He is a teacher but works in the evening as a taxi driver. He started to have sleepwalking at night with nightmares. He also got some sexual lust to one of his daughters. Actually she is the daughter of his wife from another wife. Another novel that made me anxious when I was reading it.

I cannot say that I don't like Al Tikarli, because it seems that I may read another novel for him to see to where he would take me, but his novels are not novels that made you smile, they are novels that made you frown.

Back to Life

Iraqi satellite channels are so numerous, more in number than any other Arabic country channels. Their quality at beginning was bad, but they did change quickly. Al Hurria (= the freedom) became one of my favorite when I once watched a document on "The Mendaee" religion in 2006. Baghdad was so violent and people were getting more closed to their religions and races and I was sitting in the restaurant of house of doctors watching that document that showed us how our country is antic and how beautiful is its old religions.



I turned the T.V. on last night and I saw Muthafar Al Nwuab chanting his poems. He is known for his frankness, and for saying some frank insults in his poems. His poems were not allowed to inter Iraq before 2003. I suspect that any Arabic channel can play some parts of his bold poems talking about religion, politics, and love.
I felt proud that I was able to see Muthafar Al Nwuab on an Iraqi T.V. channel.

Next day was Friday. I felt that I should go the next day to Al Mutanabbee street for a walk. To see my Baghdad hoping that I would enjoy my day.









Friday in old religions is linked to love. Its name came from the name of the Scandinavian goddess Freya, the goddess of love, beauty and fertility. Friday was a dangerous day in Baghdad during 2005 till the end of 2007. The government ordered a complete car ban, sometime even pedestrian ban, at Fridays. Al Mutannabee street Friday festivals stopped. An explosion in the same street tried to made it forgotten.
Today I went there just for a walk. I already have many books waiting to read.


I heard a song of a makam coming from Al Mada library. I went up stairs and I saw a crowd around a Chalghi musical group, two lectures talking one after the other about Al Qubanchie, and between their talks a Reader of a Makam would Read (=sing) a certain makam. The crowd was so happy. I felt so happy to a degree that I made some effort to prevent my tears from flowing.

The young girl standing in front of me was so happy and was the first to start the applauding after every piece of music ends. The lecturer ended his lecture saying: "you are the stars of this small lovely festival, thank you for coming"

Thank you for Al Mada library for making us proud of our Iraq.

the song you can hear in this post is sang by "Abbas Al Bayati" and it is a very famous Iraqi Makam song.

Lovely lies

I wanted you even if you were a liar
I wanted you to scatter a fist of reproach into my life
I wanted you even if you are a window
Filling my life with dust
I wanted you even if you were a liar

Poems of dementia
Episode one: "star war"

When the mind gets bored from too much reality testing, when the daily life is so regular like mathematics, when we spend our day sitting, when nobody shake us, when we are so alone, spending hours packed in a small minibus stuck in the crowded dangerous narrow ugly streets of
demented Baghdad, when we experience all that we will start to like poems like this one. Poems of dementia. A poem that I first heard in a song, in a strange Iraqi song, the words went like they want, fluent like water, like a lover's heartbeats race, like the long hair of a gypsy with a wide colored skirt waving to the wild wind. It reminds me of her saying stories to me. When she used to get angry at me she tells me about that "Star War" story that I most feared. "The stars would fight with each other and the world, the whole world would explode and we will all die" she would say that with an angry tone and I would fear and hold her and say "no this is not true". "it is true!" she would assure. "Stars are very far". "Well, will you do what I want from you?". I would go and do what she ordered me to do and then ask again after few minutes about the stars. She would say "let us assume that they are far, but not very far". I miss her, I don't know where she is now, I have no clue. Their quarter had been changed to an ugly commercial area since long time.

I wanted you even if you are red cactus
To shade my face
From those who speak behind my back
Liar
Liar
You fox of our luxurious grapes
We cherish you even if you are a liar

Poems of wars
Episode two "Malaga"

It was war and we moved to a new place to live for a while. I befriended him from the first day when I saw him playing chess alone. He was so sensitive and he never saw Baghdad. I missed my Baghdad so I started lying. I told him that every three or four of our neighbors run a musical rock band and that I have a band with 2 other boys and that I was the keyboard player and the singer. I even claimed to him that I am a professional guitar player. He was a boy from a village, and he was so polite. He took me once to his brother's house and he came with a guitar. He sat on the floor and played a sad
piece of Spanish music. Something like "Malaga". Then he taught me to play it. How wise he was. How polite. The next day I didn't stop telling my legendary tales. What a spoilt kid I was.
I wonder what he is doing now.

You knocked my door
My door grassed happiness
And the wood
Blazed and dissolved

Poems of giants
Episode three: bicycles and oleanders

He had a blue BMX bicycle. I had a red bicycle. We would go together like young tigers racing around and around our beautiful neighborhoods. Our quarter was filled with garden of different types. I liked especially the smell of the Difla (=oleander) tree. My friend origins were from Bartella, a village in the north of Mosul. In our childhood he was telling me about Giants that live in the mountains
in his village of origin. Giants as big as the mountains. he was trying to convince me with his believes back then while I was making fun of him. He called his sister and asked her to tell me about those Giants. She did. My sister jointed us and we laughed at them. These days I don't see my friend, his sister, nor my sister.

My cheek flamed
And the soul grew up
In flowers of pepper
And the earrings
Dissolved in acid

Poems of the biting bee
Episode four: "marriage & divorce and a single day"

When I first saw her a wise old female bee bit my heart a long bite and then started injecting hot honey in my little poor heart while every
movement she made was recorded by my non blinking glistening eyes. I was in love with her. She came to my classroom one day. I was in 6th primary school class Alif (=A), she was in Ba'a (=B). She asked me to chose a girl from our school and tell her her name. "Why?" I said, but she gave me no clue. Deep inside my tortured heart I wanted to whisper her name but instead I chose to be diplomatic. I chose my sister's name that was also in our school. My sister had a name very similar to another girl in our class and she thought I meant that girl in our class. She started writing something smiling while I was just asking "what???? Whaaaaat??". She finally laughed and said: "MARRIAGE!!!!! HA HA HAAAAAAAAA" and she went running. I chased her while my heart was melting in hot honey drops that flamed the image of that love red horse. I caught her behind the main building of our school and asked her: "what was that?". "Sami, uh, let me breath, oh God, we run too much, look, ihim ihim, it is a game that we write two names, (wicked smile) a male and a female, ihim ihim, by doing some calculations from the letters of their names mixed together, we can
know their fate, their fate together, I mean, you know what I mean, it may be: HATE, LOVE, FRIENDSHIP, NOTHING AT ALL, or (she widened her eyes, smiled, raised her eyebrows and said: OR MARRIAGE wow…. "
I smiled; I was trying to catch my breath. She was so beautiful and lively. It was not only me that loved her. I could not say anything to her standing face to face to me. I turned and started walking. She walked behind me and said: "ok Sami, seriously, tell me another name". "No thank you" I said bitterly. "Come on it is only a game" she said. I looked at her seriously lost. "It is fun come on let us laugh" she added. I was hurt by her insensitivity. Was she insensitive? She was more mature than me. Girls mature earlier. I said a fake name. I chose a name I can still remember. It just came to my mind and I said it. I female name that I thought is long and charming, and a small father name of three letters that seems tuff. She said annoyed: "Who is this?". "Somebody" I said playing a role of a tuff guy unconcerned by the suffering of the hundred girls that fall in love with him. She made the calculation with no smile.
"Divorce!" she said. "Your game is nonsense" I said to her while she was turning and went away.

I swung the braids
My love my love, my love
I died like a door

How many times we should pass throw this?
The heart had thwart
And repent from you
Liar
My heart you fox
A liar since long time

The words in deep orange color are the poem entitled "Liar" written by the well know Iraqi poet Muthaffar Al Nuwab and translated "badly" by me. its Arabic is so easy. Written in slang Iraqi language, Sang by the well known Iraqi singer Ilham Al Madfae'e, it is so lovely to my heart to a strange degree.

I believe

I believe in Hera, the queen of heavens. Her chariot was pulled by a peacock through the skies.
I believe that Aphrodite made a fault when she hided Adonis in a coffer. Another goddess took him out heralding the end of heaven and start of day and night, spring and autumn.

Don't imprison your beauty.

A la Recherche du Temps Baghdadi Perdu

Remebrance of Baghdadi Things Past



I took a day off from work to complete some papers regarding my father's retirement. I don't like the retirement crowded old building. as soon as I finished the papers I went out to the river and took a boat to Al Mustanseria school of Baghdad. Now I know I like old buildings of Baghdad.





Then I walked to al Mutanabbe street to find Al Mada library has just opened its new building which was very stylish to a degree that made me feel so happy.






Afifa Iskandar went with me upstairs talking about how much Abbas Jameel is talented while Jammouli went jealous.


Al Jawahiri greeted Afifa Iskandar with a poem.



On the music of Iraqi Makam I found my way to Abdul Khaliq Al Rukab Novel "the 7th day of creating".



While 2 US army helicopters were leaving a young man named Saif (= sword) asked me to take a picture for him with the Iraqi flag which was waving next to Al Kushla clock.

a letter of love to psychiatry

Students of medical college asked me early this morning about why "I" consider anxiety as a disease. It took me some time to talk about the concept of disease, disorder, illness, pathology, suffering, cost-benefit balance of treatment, and quality of life. I asked them if they consider a "fracture in the leg due to car accident" as a disease. I asked them whether they think "pregnancy" is a disease. Should we call a man with a fractured leg as "patient"? Should we call a pregnant lady a "patient"? And what is disease after all? Can you define it?

Anyway I am sensitive these days from those who are skeptical about psychiatry. I don't feel respected in my daily life. I saw a specialist in ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) from Hilla today and I like him very much. He likes me very much too. We kissed each others like we usually do in Iraq and started talking about some shared memories. He asked me before we departed:

- Are you STILL with psychiatry?
- …..? with?
- Didn't change … I mean…. Still sure that you want to be a psychiatrist?
- Well, what to do else? I like it.
- God may help you my friend and make success in your way always.
- Thank you dear, same for you. Byebye.
- Byebye.

Soooo he is kind but, like them, what is wrong?

In that small room he said to his companion with a loud voice as if trying to see what would be my comment: "our thesis in psychiatry is just nonsense, do you believe that someone can really work and do a thesis? Just lies". They laughed anxiously while looking at me. I smiled to them and went out to the outpatient clinic.

A teenage with obsessive compulsive disorder was waiting me in the outpatient clinic. He astonished me by his knowledge of his disorder and he told me that he chat online with a psychiatrist from the USA. He told me that he reads websites talking about obsessive compulsive disorder. Dealing with him made me realize that I am not in a world of ignorant.

After him came three clients, one after the other, all having social phobia, all were university graduates and very clever.

Then a lady from a rural area, no schooling, with marked psychomotor retardation, anhedonia, insomnia, early morning awakening and history of resistant depression came alone. She was enough insightful to say: "I really don't want to come to you doctor, but I got to force myself, cause when the episode will go away I would think this is what I should have been done, coming to you". I asked her about whether she finds life worthy. She told me about her suicidal attempts and showed me her previous wrist and neck wounds. I told her she must be treated inside hospital for few days maybe. She asked me to consult her family and that she will come on the next days.

A lady with a card written on it: "paranoid schizophrenia on zyprexa 10mg/day" came to ask me about zyprexa. She said: "I don't want to go back thinking those strange ideas doctor, I have hurt my daughters enough on the last episode, I want to continue on zyprexa, is this dangerous? Is zyprexa addictive?"

The last client was a small family. Father, mother and her, the most beautiful princess with hearing difficulty and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She turned the room upside down on our heads. She wrote me a letter and drew me a painting.

When they went I felt I am much better and that I like my profession no matter what. Those people I saw today in the outpatient clinic know about psychiatry more, and respect psychiatry more than medical students, ENT specialist, and some other doctors. It is for their sake, and for my sake, that I will continue enjoying studying and practicing psychiatry. Those ideas were coming in my head while I was preparing to go out of the outpatient clinic. The king, father of the princess came to me with the princess who was frowning at her father who said: "please doctor, can you write something for her, I mean anything in a white paper, I am sorry but she wants to take the prescription paper you already wrote and she might tear it, can you just give her a paper with anything written on so that she stop her temper?".
"sure" I said and took a white paper and wrote something like her lines on it and gave it to her. She smiled and hold it up in the sky and yelled at her father: "hay hay!!". Her father kept saying "sorry doctor" and I kept saying "it is ok" we smiled to each other and went out.

Ya Zina (=Hey Beauty)

يا زينة ديري لا تاي
ديري لا تاي ومنل قابسة للبراد
يا زينة ريبي للواد
ريبي للواد وجيبي نعناع جديد

Ya Zina make the tea
Make the tea, from the sauce pan to the tea pot
Ya zina go to the river
Go to the river, and bring fresh menthol






I have finished my thesis yesterday and spent the rest of the night watching a film of Maryl Streep and Clint Eastwood named "Bridges of Madison County". This evening I decided that I should take a rest. I opened the youtube and found myself typing "Raina Rai Ya Zina" and hearing that song from the 80s of Algeria.

يا زينة مانيش عليك
مانيش عليك لاخرودوني عينيك
يا زينة كولي واه
ولا لالا ولا تكطيني للياس

Ya zina am not speaking on you
Speaking 'bout you, your eyes have perturbed me
Ya zina tell me yes
Or no no, or cut my hope

Algerian coast in the 80s witnessed one of my earliest discoveries of my body. I saw my extended family for the first time in swimming dresses making some conversation with the sea. I preferred to run like a young wild horse till the sun said goodbye. "Bronzage", said in a French accent, made my old uncle saying: "your color now is so beautiful my boy". It was very rare that he talk to me. His compliment made me feel so happy. One month of happiness ended heralding the return to Baghdad while my mom's tears are in her cheeks while the taxi driver was driving fast next to the sea taking us to the airport. My eyes, not used to see my mother's tears, started pleasing them to stop that silent crying.


يا زينة عينيك كبار
عينيك كبار يدخلو المحنة للدار
يا زينة والزين الزين
والزين الزين وساكن سيدي ياسين

Ya zina your eyes are big
Your eyes are big bringing the ordeal to the home
Ya zina the beauty the beauty
And the beauty the beauty living in Sidi Yaseen

يا زينة والفن والراي
والفن والراي وخارج من بلعباس
يا زينة راني مهموم
راني مهموم منك ماجاني نوم

Ya zina & art & rai
And art and rai coming from Bil Abbas
Ya zina I am concerned
I am concerned, because of you no sleep came to me

Sahara treated my insomnia (March 2005)
Insomnia attacked me on Algeria in 2005 while I was searching for a job and not finding any. I thought I am a tuff guy till I chose one day to visit a psychiatrist. She was a lady psychiatrist. I cried a lot like I never did since long years. She was very helpful. After visiting her I took my Amytriptiline and went to Bou Sa'ada to start searching for a job there. Bou Sa'ada is also called the gate of Sahara because it lies at the start of Sahara. I started sleeping so well there but I found no job during a period of one month. On the night I chose to return to Iraq a Bou Sa'adian family invited me for dinner.
Before we started to eat an old lady entered the room where we were sitting. She stretched her hand to me. She seemed she wanted to shake hands. I put my hand in her hand. She started to take my hand toward her mouth…. And then… I wanted to take my hands back but I thought it would be in appropriate… she kissed my hand… !!! God what to do. I thought for a long second then decided that I should kiss her hand… I took her hand to my lips and kissed them. You know what she did? She took my hand again and kissed it!!!! I took again her hand and kissed it. I am not sure now that we did that a third time but I am sure that the people around us were surprised by this strange greeting of our invention, me and the old lady whom I didn't see before. We were smiling wide to each other when she went inside the house. People decided not to comment on this perplexing incident while I was really feeling more relaxed and more secure. We ate that Bou Sa'adian dish with resonant gusto.

يا زينة كولي لباك
كولي لباك راه القلب رضاك
يا زينة كولي ليماك
كولي ليماك وراه الحب براك

Ya zina tell your dad
Tell your dad that the heart is willing for you
Ya zina tell your mom
Tell your mom that love had healed you

يا زينة ما نيش عليك
ما نيش عليك وراني عل روميات
يا زينة كوليلي واه
ولة لالا ولة تكطعيني لليآس

Ya zina I am not speaking on you
'bout you, I am about the western women
Ya zina tell me yes
Or no no or put an end to my hope

To Baghdad with her tears on my cheeks (April 2005)
I reached Alger. I went to tell my mom that I will go back. I could not bear the weight of her tears. I went out to central Alger. I bought 2 books of Rachid Bou Jidra. I walked in Didoush Murad street. I walked in Bab El Wad. I bought a ticket to Amman/Jordan from the Algerian Airway. I took a taxi late in the evening back home. I took my Amitriptyline and Bromazepam prescribed by that Algerian female psychiatrist two months ago. I slept like statues do. I woke up. I went to kiss her goodbye. She was in her bed, under her blanket silently crying. While her tears were on my cheeks I went back to Iraq.


كي راني ولة مهموم
في هذي كحلة لعيون
نجمة النجوم
كي راني لة مغروم
يا زينة

I am concerned
In this black eyed woman
Star of the stars
I am in love
Ya zina

The Ruins

"My heart, don't ask where the love has gone
It was a citadel of my imagination that has collapsed
Water me and let me drink of its ruins
And tell the story on my behalf as long as the tears flow
Tell how that love became past news
And became a matter of the subject of pain"


Um Kalthum. You know her? You should my friend. Here she is.

"I haven't forgotten you And you seduced me
with a sweetly-calling and tender tongue
And a hand extending towards me
like a hand stretched out through the waves
to a drowning person
And a light searching for a wanderer

But where is that light in your eyes?"

She is Egyptian. She sings in an Egyptian Arabic accent. She refused to sing in any other accent when visiting Arab countries like other singers do. She only sang in Egyptian accent. She never sang a song of somebody else. She only sang her songs. She made an exception. Only one exception as far as I know, and that was in the 1930s when she visited Baghdad. She heard Salima Murad singing "your heart is a boulder rock" in Al Hilal (=crescent) cabaret. Um Kalthum sang Salima Murad's song on the next night in that same cabaret. Salima Basha went angry, while Ma'arouf Al Rusafi calmed down her saying: "you give us your song like serving a fatty ox meat meal, while Um Kalthoum presents it like a Gazelle meat dish, don't worry my dear". I don't know if Salima Basha liked what Al Rusafi said, but it seems it calmed her down a little.

"My darling, I visited your nest one day
bird of desire singing my pain
You've become self-important, spoiled and capricious
And you inflict harm like a powerful tyrant
And my longing for you cauterized my ribs (soul or insides)
And the moments were embers in my blood"

Salima Murad was born in Baghdad in 1905. She was a famous singer and she was the protagonist in the Iraqi film "Alia and Isam" in 1946. In spite of being a Jew, Salima Murad Basha stayed living in Baghdad till she died in the first of January 1974. She was very respectful. She brought respect to female singers. Females singers were seen, and still seen, in Arabic countries as prostitutes in disguise. Salima Murad, Um Kalthoum, Fairouz, and few others brought respect to Arabic female singers and stood tall in theatres all over the Arabic countries.

"Give me my freedom, release my hands
I've given you and did not try to retain anything
Ah, your chains have bloodied my wrists
Why are they still there when I no longer affect you
Why do I keep promises that you do not honor?
I've had it with this prison now that the world is mine"

I was in the minibus when the driver asked me before we go: "this is a novel?".
- Yes, it is about the life of Salima Murad
- Wow, seems interesting.
- Yes, sure it is.
- Naim Kattan?
- Yes he is the writer; he is an Iraqi Jew living in Canada.
- Do you write?
- Not really.
- I write poems, and I study literature in the evening.
- This is great, hope all the success to you.
- Thanks. I like Jerji Zidan. He is Christian. Some consider him as orientalist. Maybe the author of your novel is an orientalist!
- …….
- No, I don't think so. Iraqi Jewish likes Iraq. They are Iraqi. True Iraqis.
- ….. (I smiled)
- …..(he smiled)

When I went out of the bus, he kept looking at me waiting that I greet him. I saluted him. He saluted me smiling. I put my hand on my heart.

"He is far away, my enchanting love

Full of pride, majesty and delicacy

Sure-footed walking like a king
Oppressive beauty and rapacious glory

Redolent of charm like the breeze of the valleys

Pleasant to experience like the night's dreams
I've lost forever the charm of your company that radiated brilliantly

I, wandering in love, a bewildered butterfly, approached you

And between us, desire was a messenger and drinking companion that presented the cup to us"

The novel of "Farida" is said to be about the life of Salima Murad. Her picture is in the cover of the novel. I knew that Nathum Al Ghazalli did marry Salima Basha but this was not clear in the novel. The novel ends in the late 40s while Salima Basha is losing her lover and companion Salim who decided to go to Israel. Novel ends while Salima Basha Murad is alone, totally alone, having a big house, a cabaret, and will have a car and a driver. She was alone, didn't need anyone, but was not sure that she was happy.



"I have had a chance to visit ruins. The first were the ruins of Babylon. As I child, I felt them rarely, it was only later that I realised that they had become an inseparable part of my past, like historical memory, and when I had a chance to see again, in the Berlin Museum, the reconstructed temple to the goddess Ishtar and especially a vase with an inscription in Hebrew, I had a feeling that I was reliving history in the present moment and that my birth was becoming lost in time and that it no longer belonged to me."

From the Speech by Mr Naïm Kattan on the Occasion of the Award of his Honorary Doctorate from the University of Novi Sad

"Had love seen two as intoxicated as us?

So much hope we had built up around us

And we walked in the moonlit path, joy skipping along ahead of us

And we laughed like two children together

And we ran and raced our shadows"

Naïm Kattan was born in 1928 in Baghdad, in Iraq where he completed his elementary and secondary education and where he studied Law. In 1947 he received a scholarship from the French Government to study French Language and Literature at the Sorbonne. He received a doctorate in French Literature. Following that, in 1954, he immigrated to Canada to be one of the most famous writers of Canada and one of its most distinguished professors of literature.

"And we became aware after the euphoria and woke up

If only we did not awaken

Wakefulness ruined the dreams of slumber

The night came and the night became my only friend

And then the light was an omen of the sunrise
And the dawn was towering over like a conflagration

And then the world was as we know it,
with each lover in their own path"

I keep asking myself if there is still a hope that people like Naim Kattan can go back someday to Iraq. For a visit at least. His novel "Farida" reached Baghdad which embraced it and newspapers started to write about it. The welcoming of the novel is not that warm. Many are not finding time to read a novel. But most will listen if you talk to them about this novel. About Salima Murad. About old cabarets of Baghdad.

"Oh sleepless one who slumbers and remembers the promise when you wake up

Know that if a wound begins to recover another wound crops up with the memory

So learn to forget and learn to erase it"

In his speech while receiving the honorary doctorate, Naim Kattan mentioned Um Kalthum's song "Al Atlal (=the Ruins)". And linked it to his memories of his old places. Of Iraq. I went to my neighbor and asked him about this song. He gave it to me after a search that lasted about half an hour. I kept saying: "please don't bother yourself". But he said: "you never asked of Um Kalthum before, I was surprised you ask about her today, I must find her for you".

- Do you know where "Al Hilal Cabaret" was?
- I think in Al Midan sequare in Bab Al Muathem. I got a picture of an old cabaret in Al Midan.
- Is it still working
- Ha ha ha, you make me laugh Sami. Of course not. Look at it. It is forgotten.
-

"My darling everything is fated

It is not by our hands that we make our misfortune
Perhaps one day our fates will cross when our desire to meet is strong enough
For if one friend denies the other and we meet as strangers
And if each of us follows his or her own way
Don't say it was by our own will

But rather, the will of fate"

He found the song for me at last and I am listening to it since about 5 hours. It is 40 minutes long. Its lyrics were written by a poet called Ibrahim Naji. He was a doctor as far as I know. The lyrics are in the rosy italic font.
At last let us dream that peace will come and stay in Baghdad, in all Iraq, and all people can visit our country, their country, which will regain its charm.

The translation of Um Kalthum's song is taken from this site:
http://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/arabic-lyrics-translation/58223-oum-kalthoum-al-atlal.html