Kept Light» Pera

The Puppeteer in Pera

A. Cemal Ekin — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:49:13 +0000

On one of our outings, when we visited Narmanli Han, I heard an enchanting music coming behind a line of people watching something. I could see the head of a very tall man with his face painted white but could not make anything of it until I got reasonably close to peek through the crowd. It was a puppeteer manipulating his alter ego with an accompanying story. In a way it was mesmerizing, the man was talking, narrating a story in a deep voice over the music seemingly coming from a device attached to his waist. His black attire, a backdrop for the marionette, made him look larger than he probably was. His arms moved in carefully choreographed sequences carrying the marionette in different directions, or made him kneel. The totality of the experience was captivating, almost to a fault as I do not remember even one word the man said for fear of missing a move, or missing a note of the music.

Then, there was a man in white, I mean from head to toe white. He stood there with occasional smile on his face, with total incongruity with the crowd surrounding the puppeteer; his sole purpose seemed to be to provide a strong contrast to the puppeteer in black. Seeing the puppeteer, the man in white, and a young man who appeared to be the apprentice of the showman, was at times a surreal experience. Who were these men, why did the man in white stood there, why did the apprentice appear to be disinterested in what was going on yet in full costume like his master? I took some photographs, albeit only a dozen or so under rather low light conditions. We continued to visit Narmali Han, where I took some photographs of the cats. Then on our way back, the puppeteer was now wearing an oversize mask, fitting to the occasion, rather grotesque. This time he and his alter ego coincided more.

I took a few more photographs but we had to move on. Still, I believe the few photographs I have convey the surrealistic experience quite strongly, at least to me. Here are the characters of this late afternoon show.

Narmanli Han

A. Cemal Ekin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:12:23 +0000

Narmanli Han is an old caravansarai style building. It served as a hotel, residence for some well-known figures, and office space. Currently one of the notary public offices is located inside. It has a large atrium and structures on all sides. The main residents are the many cats that made the garden and the surrounding structures home.

Here are a few of the residents in this wonderful space.

Galatasaray

A. Cemal Ekin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:42:20 +0000

Galatasaray is the heart of the old city district Pera, between the old Tunel (a very short and very old subway) and Taksim square. The main street, Istiklal Caddesi (avenue), is always busy and the side streets very colorful, albeit not always “pretty”. You will see the stairs of a building which used to be a very well kept office building, now in shambles; or trash bags thrown on an corner. Yet, the people are always spirited, often you can tell they have a certain “attitude”, not in a particularly bad way yet I can distincly see it in the faces of many. The two gray building facade pictures. They are the top two floors of a building that belong to the famous Turkish photographer, Ara Guler. On the ground level, there is a coffee house carrying his name “Ara”. The building and the cafe are in a narrow alley, for which the Turkish word is “ara”. You will also note that the color of the building is middle gray, Zone V, and the trim appeared to me as Zone II.

Take a look at the views from a small section of Pera.