A secret turning in us
makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet,
and feet head. Neither cares.
They keep turning.
– Rumi
As everybody knows, the Mevlevi are an order of dervishes founded in Konya in the 12th Century by the followers of the great mystical poet Rumi and who are best known for their practice of whirling as a form of “dhikr” (remembrance of God).
If you go to Turkey, people at home, before you leave, might say that you ought to see dervishes and that if you were to see dervishes you ought to take a picture. Perhaps you don’t give this much thought in the beginning, you don’t really keep an eye out for dervishes. But then one day you realise that time is running out and that you must see dervishes and you ask someone where you can see them. They tell you that if you turn left where the simit seller usually is and then walk until you see a boy who has a rabbit which picks out slips of paper to tell your fortune, opposite where they are there is a little square where sooner or later you will see dervishes. As you follow these indications, you think that if, as they say, you are going to see dervishes you should buy a camera to take that picture you were assked for. You buy the cheapest one you can find and wait for an hour on the little square but don’t see anything. You stop a passer-by and say that they said you would see dervishes here, but there don’t seem to be any. He tells you to be patient and that you might see dervishes, maybe later. After another hour, you stop another person. He is in a hurry but he says, “But you are seeing dervishes, look over there.” He rushes off. You stare in the direction he indicated and think: I am said to be seeing dervishes but I seem not to be. Night is about to fall, you can’t wait much longer. So you point your camera in the direction of the dervishes you are supposed to be seeing and say, “If I have seen dervishes, they will come out in the picture.”
If you have managed to get this far (not many will have), do the following exercises.
1. Translate this text into Turkish with the aid of the tables below taken from Turkish Grammar by Geoffrey Lewis, which gives you 37 ways of combining tense and mood to make statements about seeing dervishes.
2. Learn all the 37 forms and recite them – a mystical experience in itself.
3. Replace dervishes with another word, I suggest tercümanları (interpreters) or kangaruları (kangaroos) and see what stories you can make up using Turkish verb forms.
4. Go up to someone you don’t know and say, “I might see dervishes, maybe later.”
|
|
Simple
|
Pas |
Conditional |
|
Present |
Dervişleri görüyorum. |
Dervişleri görüyordum. |
Dervişleri görüyorsam, … |
|
General |
Dervişleri görürüm. |
Dervişleri görürdüm. |
Dervişleri görürsem, … |
|
Future |
Dervişleri göreceğim. |
Dervişleri görecektim. |
Dervişleri göreceksem, … |
|
miş-past |
Dervişleri görmüşüm. |
Dervişleri görmüştüm. |
Dervişleri görmüşsem, … |
|
di-past |
Dervişleri gördüm. |
I have |
I had seen |
|
Necessity |
Dervişleri görmeliyim. |
Dervişleri görmeliydim. |
— |
|
Conditional |
Dervişleri görsem, … |
Dervişleri görseydim, … |
— |
|
Subjunctive |
Dervişleri göreyim. |
Dervişleri göreydim! |
— |
|
|
Past |
Inferential |
Inferential |
|
Present |
Dervişleri görüyorduysam, … |
Dervişleri görüyormuşum. |
Dervişleri görüyormuşsam, … |
|
General |
Dervişleri görürdüysem, … |
Dervişleri görürmüşüm. |
Dervişleri görürmüşsem, … |
|
Future |
Dervişleri görecektiysem, … |
Dervişleri görecekmişim. |
Dervişleri görecekmişsem, … |
|
miş-past |
Dervişleri görmüş idiysem, … |
Dervişleri görmüş ümüşüm. |
Dervişleri görmüş ümüşsem, … |
|
di-past |
Dervişleri gördü üdüysem, … |
— |
— |
|
Necessity |
— |
Dervişleri görmeliymişim. |
— |
|
Conditional |
— |
Dervişleri görseymişim. |
— |
|
Subjunctive |
— |
Dervişleri göreymişim! |
— |
Sideways Station 