Masoomiyet Muzesi (The museum of innocence in Turkish)

Dear Ertyaas,
Your butterflies are not leaving me anywhere in the world. They start flying from the books of Gabo, they show themselves in the museums of your city, and now this time this single one appears in this first shelf of Masoomiyet Muzesi, the house of Kemal where he is collecting all the objects that reminded him of her beloved Fusun. I was standing in front of this shelf carrying the ear-ring of Fuson’s in the form of this tiny little butterfly about to fly into the unknown, and i was thinking of you…..

Orhan Pamuk who built this museum of innocence in downtown Istanbul once said that,
“If we learn to think of life not as a fine line like Aristotle’s Time but as a series of intense moments of which we are reminded one by one by objects, then hanging around our sweetheart’s table for eight years will strike us not as something strange to make fun of but rather like the 1,593 happy evenings I spent at Füsun’s house.” (Excerpts from the book The museum of Innocence)

You must see it, whenever you are in Istanbul. Yes i know your Istanbul is beautiful, as you say a city of memories and dreams, but this one standing house opened just two months back is like a single wine glass full of red wine in the old congested neighborhood of Istanbul showing you the same Istanbul in whole different color. A work of a genius artist, a dreamer, a writer Orhan pamuk, who created this Museum of innocence and also wrote a book with the same name.  For him it is not the museum trying to elaborate the book, nor the book telling about the museum, but both in their own humble way telling the same story of Kemal’s love for Fusun. After seeing the museum you will find yourself living in a world where anything can happen… with small things collected from garbage telling stories of their own , be it the driving license of Fusun, the clip of Milliyet newspaper showing Fusun in her beauty contest, or the fake jenny colon bag which becomes the very excuse for Kemal to be in love with her……..shelves after shelves, you see things associated with Fusun ,her hair clips, sewing machines, half empty cups of Turkish coffee and Chai(tea), etc etc, all trying in their most innocent way to tell the story of Kemal’s love of Fusun and their intense moments together.

Orhan Pamuk used the word happiness more then 260 times in his book(museum of innocence)….I cannot say if the museum made me happy or sad, but the very first shelf carrying the Butterfly ear-ring of Fusun’s did make me smile, and so did the last sentence of the novel saying “Let it be for all clear that I lived a happy life” 

They say coincidence is god’s way of remaining anonymous… and so just after I came out of the museum, the first girl I saw selling books was wearing another butterfly hairband…… And then you say I should not believe in a god……

From somewhere in downtown Istanbul,
Salman