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Ode to Ixxxx

by thehandsom (12/13/2008)

If you asked me a year ago who my best friend was, I would give one name without hesitation!

It was the 11th of December last year and I was in the office by myself.

 I checked my yahoo account and there was an email from a friend:

"Merhaba ...,

....Bu gun Umman´dan aldigimiz haberle sarsildik.Sevgili arkadasimiz biricigimiz Ixxxx aramizdan ayrildi....."

I remember getting up from my chair and walking away, I did not want to believe what i was reading..I came back and read it again. 

´not now´ I said to myself. My throat got dry as  my tears started flew. As if somebody punched me on the face, I sat on my chair and did not know what to do or what to think. 

But i remember repeating to myself ´not now. no´..

He was a friend from uni. I dont think we liked each other at the first instance. He was too theoretical as I seemed to be more interested in life. He was a constant opposition to 

every single ugly form around us whereas I was more into politics. But we had quite similar back grounds; same type of family structure same sort of upbringing; similar places we lived. 

We become very good friends in the end. He was my constant bridge partner in cafes. (I still remember how we used to chat and argue almost about everything in canteens, in empty classrooms..From Can Yucel to Adalet Agaoglu, From Firuzan to Turgut Uyar.) 

Once the uni was over, I started to work as a structural designer. So was he. Though we used work in different places in Istanbul, but somehow people would ask extra work and I would share those with him and another friend.  (the design consisted of two stages: calculations and the drawings. they took almost similar time so I would do the calculations and he would do the drawings or other way round). It was the time when we would finish 2 extra projects in a month and end of the month we would go on a holiday together 

-Marmaris Fethiye Dalyan etc-. When we finished uni he told me about his greatest love ( a girl from the same class and a very good friend of mine..I worked with her in the same 

office for more than a year. And she was the third person I would share extra projects with) 

Then we left everything and went to Saudi Arabia;I went first and there was a position there and he came too .The unbearable hot nights in Arafat he and I walking on the desert and singing ´simdi uzaklardasin/gonul hicranla doldu/ hic ayrilamam derken/ kavusmak hayal oldu´ from Zeki Muren, he was thinking of her and I knew it.

The army years after that..I preferred a short 8 months as a private, he had 16 months as an officer and we did not speak to eachother for 2 years (because of that girl as 

somehow, he had to speak to the girl formally about what he felt, because of me. And it was a turning point in his life. That is the time he began to  let everything go and eat only)

Then, I refused to go back to the designing and start working on the construction sites. He was still doing the design work. He was not enjoying it and I asked him if he wanted to join us..And we were again seeing eachother everyday like in uni for around 2 years (we lived in the camp and came back to istanbul for weekends).

My parents decided to leave Istanbul and when I said ´lets hire a flat together´-he was living with his brother at the time as he had lost both parents-, an hour later, we were planing how much would it cost opening a new flat; three days later we had a flat in Istanbul. The following three years, I think, was the most free and most enjoyable time of my life.

 

At the weekends, we would come from work to istanbul on saturday evenings and start drinking on Galata bridge then bars of Ortakoy (there used to be ´marti bar´ ) and then bars of Arnavutkoy for jazz music.

Some nights we would simply sit in front of the telly and talk about poetry, life, our hopes, our desires, our loves until someone phoned and said that he/she is coming to stay the night with us.

Then I was sent to Pakistan by the company and when I was on holiday in Sri lanka, when I phoned him, he asked my opinion about the girl who was with him at the time (she was living with us for a while) and told me that he was thinking about proposing to her.

Then I came to the UK; He was the first person to know about my decision (even before my family).

We kept in contact of course..But the life, time , problems etc..Our conversations become less frequent..But when I had a serious problem, he was the first person to talk 

to..Same from his part too..Whenever I went to Istanbul, I would stay with them in the same flat and for me it was like as if I never left that city and that life. I 

would go to his work with him and I would be introduced by him to his environment as his greatest friend and a great engineer (somehow they always respected me because of whatever he said to them about me)

Then, there was a big project in Pakistan and I got really bored in the UK and unhappy so I went back to Pakistan. There was a position available at the time and he was not 

working. Of course, I called him and asked if he wanted to come..And again, once more we were in the same place as we used to be in old days. (I remember him arranging a birthday party for me with raki and with all my favorite songs in a cd)

And I went back to the UK and he stayed there.

Then he went to Nigeria (several calls from him talking about shutter designs, post tensioning, his problems, my problems. Long long telephone calls)

The last place he was in Umman..

I saw him only once after Pakistan. Just for a night in his new flat. And last telephone conversation was about 6 months before that email I mentioned in the begining. He called me because I was in Istanbul for my father´s by pass operation.

He was slightly shorter than me, during the army, he was slightly plumb. And then he just put weight on constantly. He could not stop it. He was huge in the end 

(I warned him when we were in pakistan and he went dieting for a month but he stopped it)

Anyway, going back to the begining:

"Merhaba ...,

....Bu gun Umman´dan aldigimiz haberle sarsildik.Sevgili arkadasimiz biricigimiz I... aramizdan ayrildi....."

It translates ´hi....we have been shaken with a news from Umman. Our dearest friend, our only one, Ixxxx has left us.´

He went to sleep and did not wake up..

And ask me the same question again  now ´who my best friend is´?

My answer is:

I dont have a best friend anymore..

 





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