Ashik Veysel

When I helped a blind man on the bus yesterday, a well-known vision-disabled person came to my mind, and I thought I had to prepare an article about him. Another thing made me think how happy and grateful these disabled people are! He was smiling at everyone even though he could not see us. This is a pure bliss!

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He was a Turkish Alevi ashik, bağlama virtuoso, and folk poet. He was born and died in the village of Sivrialan, Sivas Province, in the Ottoman Empire (later Turkey). Blind since the age of 7, Veysel’s songs were typically melancholic, and dealt with a range of themes revolving around morality, love, faith, life and death, patriotism, nature, and his own perception of the world as a blind man.

Veysel is considered one of the most prominent icons of Turkish folk music and literature. Among his most popular folk songs are Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım (Turkish: I’m on a Long and Narrow Road); “Black Earth” (Kara Toprak); “Let My Friends Remember Me” (Dostlar Beni Hatırlasın) and “Your Beauty is Worth Nothing” (Güzelliğin On Para Etmez).

Blindness

It had recently rained in Sivrialan, and the road was saturated with mud and snow. On the way home, Veysel’s foot slipped. He fell and bloodied his hand, and, after lying there for some time, got up and ran home in tears. It was discovered that he had developed a fever. Veysel was undressed and quickly put to bed. The next morning, he was unable to get up; it was soon discovered that Veysel too, had contracted smallpox.

Veysel was bedridden for three months. As the disease progressed, he developed a smallpox pustule in his left eye, which eventually caused a leakage that left him completely blind on that side. Veysel’s right eye was spared, but quickly began to fail as well. He was left able only to perceive changes in light. By the time the pox eventually faded, Veysel was blind and scarred for the rest of his life, and needed to be led by the hand.

Veysel’s situation was a source of constant worry for his father, Ahmet, who feared that his own passing would leave no one to take care of Veysel. The Emlek region, by which the area around Sivrialan was known, was at the time a popular place for itinerant bards and ashiks to come and perform their compositions. Ahmet, who was interested in poetry, read Veysel poems in an effort to console him.

In 1904 or 1905, Ahmet made a trip to the village of Ortaköy, 21 km from Şarkışla. At the Mustafa Kemal lodge in Ortaköy, Ahmet discussed his worries with one Hakkı Baba, who gave Ahmet a broken three-stringed saz, which Ahmet later gave to Veysel. Asking what the instrument was, Veysel was told that the saz was a gift to keep him entertained.

Veysel first took saz lessons from a neighbour, Molla Hüseyin, who also tuned and replaced any broken strings. However, whilst he enjoyed the saz’s sound, Veysel initially found it too difficult to learn, and tried to throw the instrument aside. Ahmet, in contrast, was adamant that his son learn; Veysel, who could not plow, sow, or harvest, but who had a fine voice, could use the saz as a way to earn a living. In a quote recounted decades later by Veysel himself, Ahmet had told his son:

My son, who will take care of you when we are gone? We want to make sure that you have a skill. What else can you do, besides play the saz? You can’t farm, sow seeds, or harvest crops. If you learn this, you can earn a living by playing in village halls, meetings, and coffeehouses.

Though Veysel was initially reluctant, he understood his father’s concerns, and he eventually began to learn the saz in earnest, also committing traditional folk songs and poems to memory, including the works of Yunus Emre, Pir Sultan Abdal, Karacaoğlan, Kemter Baba, Veli, Visali, Kul Abdal, Emrah, Tarsuslu Sıtkı, Şahan Ağa, and other great Alevi poets and ashiks of Anatolia. Veysel also listened to the works of other ashiks; his favourite was a friend and contemporary of his, Hıdır Dede, also from Sivrialan and about Veysel’s age.

Poetry

In terms of subject matter, most of Veysel’s poems were about nature, love, solidarity, national pride, or life and death, and were informed by Veysel’s perception of the world as a blind man. Few of his poems were explicitly political. Despite being a practicing Alevi Muslim, only some of Veysel’s poems were explicitly religious in nature, though he frequently alluded to religion in many of his works; once asked why he did not mention Alevism or Bektashism (it was impossible to tell which Veysel was from his poems alone), Veysel replied, “If you listen to my songs with your heart’s eye, you will understand what I am talking about. If you don’t have eyes to see, what shall I do?”

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I’m on a Long and Narrow Road (Lyrics)

I’m on a long and narrow road I’m going day and night What state I’m in, I do not know I’m going day and night

When first I came into this world I started on that narrow road And at the two-doored inn I strode I’m going day and night

Even sleeping, I walk on Even waking, I search on Many seeing, all are gone I’m going day and night

Forty-nine years on this road On plain, on peak, in desert roam, Through stranger lands I do not know I’m going day and night

If I stand and deeply think As if to nothingness it shrinks Though the road goes in a blink I’m going day and night

Veysel wonders at this plight Through times of sorrow, or delight The distant end of this to sight I’m going day and night

Black Earth > https://youtu.be/BwAjsvfRbTY