Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Last of the Alevi Stories.....

Here's three more...and the last unless people start writing and demanding in mass more and more and more AND MORE!
Foulmouthed Pirzo from the last batch I translated pops up again.  There are lots of stories about the same characters.  Also, in the second story there is a conflict between the enlightened ones (erenler) and the living beings (canli).  In the one Alevi ceremony I went to, the dede made a point to say there were no men or women here, no hierarchy of any kind, just "canli"--living things who were all equal in the eyes of God.  The erenler, or enlightened ones, would be the elite, the fancy pants, the better-than-thous.








The old style Turkish Aga

1
In Kangal, all the agas gathered and decided they needed some entertainment.  Again, Pirzo came to mind and they sent for him.  The news reached him that he was wanted, and since the orders came straight from the top, he had no choice but to set out on the cold, icy winter roads.  When he arrived at the place they had invited him to, his moustache had completely iced over and the top of his head was crowned with snow.  As soon as walked in the door, one of the agas started to harass him.
"Well, well, if it isn't the polar bear we've been waiting hours for!"
When he heard this, Pirzo turned to the aga and said,
"What are you afraid of boss?  I mean, what's one little bear to a bunch of vicious mad dogs like you?"  


Speedy Ali

Speedy Alishan was an Alevi from the province of Tunceli, but now he lived in Germany, in the town of Solingen.  He was known for playing jokes on people.  In fact, he loved pranks.  In Germany, any news about Alevis came out of his mouth first.  To people who reminded him of this peculiarity of his, he had this to say.
"I swear, just between us, I love to gossip.  I have a lot of free time, you see.  I've raised my girls.  They're running the travel agency now, so I have even more time for gossiping.  When I set to work in the morning, if there are no juicy little tidbits coming my way, I open up my little black book, and start calling everyone I know--in order.  Something always turns up.  Then I put whatever I find on this on-line system they've got nowadays and spread it to everyone I know."
Speedy Alishan really gets off on playing pranks.
Years ago, the United Alevi Federation wanted to establish a fund for Alevis living in Germany.  This fund would enable their bodies to be sent to Turkey for funerals which would be conducted according to Alevi beliefs.  But the president of the federation at that time was deadset against this and the fund was never set up.  On top of that, the Dede who had been so opposed to the establishment of a company for funerals, established a company on his own, together with his children, called "Funeral Homes of the Enlightened."  This enraged Speedy Alishan.  In order to make the Dede lose a few nights of sleep, he told everyone he was going to build a rival funeral company of his own and establish branches all throughout Germany.  He was going to name it "Funeral Homes for All God's Creatures," and create a slogan.
"All God's Creatures Will Meet Again in Heaven."
On top of this, he said he was going to start a promotion campaign.
Whenever he mentioned this promotion, we laughed.  "How in the world is going to have a promotion for a funeral!?" we thought.  "There's no way."
So we asked.
"Easy!" he said.  "Buy 10 funerals, and your own funeral is free!"


Tunceli


3

In order to hang out with Pirzo, the agas of Kangal agreed to invite him to dinner.
The agas, seeing how hungry Pirzo was, started to stuff chunks of Turkish delight into his mouth, one after the other.
"Here is one for the love of your dear Ali," they said.
"Take this one, it's the great Uthman."
"And here's one for the great Abu Bakr."
For a finale, they stuffed one more piece of Turkish delight into his mouth "for the love of Umar".
After swallowing the last piece, Pirzo let rip a fart that the whole room could hear.
The agas laughed and came up to him.
"Whoa, Pirzo.  What was that, for the love of God?  It sounded like a bomb."
Pirzo was quick to answer the laughing agas.
"That's what happens.  When those other bastards showed up, Ali was not about to hang around and got out as fast as he could."



1 comment:

Jean Summers said...

I enjoyed rreading your post