The Bulgarian Untouchables

Mena, my wife, and I were walking on a street of Yambol, a small town in Bulgaria. I noticed two young men nearby. I looked at them, they looked at us and we couldn’t take our eyes off. It was like a Bollywood scene where siblings separated in childhood accidentally bump into one another as adults. Five minutes later, a car passed by. A girl was in its passenger seat. Again the same reaction, we stared at her, she stared at us. Nobody said anything.

That evening, we were accosted by a young bearded guy. Except for us, the street was empty. He began talking to me in a language I didn’t understand. I don’t speak Bulgarian, but I can recognise it. This language was very different. The young man looked disappointed when we couldn’t understand him. For a mile, he silently walked with us, then went ahead.

The following day, on our routine evening stroll, a bubbly, middle-aged man came out of his house and greeted us. He looked like my ground-floor neighbour from Bombay. He wanted to talk to us. Though we had no common language, we recited numbers 1 to 10 in our respective languages and found them to be similar. His extended family and friends gathered. Photos were taken. His daughter posed with my wife. One could be forgiven for thinking both belonged to the same community.

All these people were Bulgarian Gypsies.

Roma, not Gypsies

The word ‘Gypsy’ suggests a group of exotic wanderers and fortune-tellers, playing music and dancing, possessing powers to heal as well as curse, riding in caravans with horses and mules.

Gypsy, as a matter of philological fact, is a mistaken term. When these dark-skinned nomads reached Europe fifteen centuries ago, the Europeans thought they were from Egypt. Gypsy is short for e-gypsy-ans (Egyptians). Columbus erroneously called the American tribes Indian, they were not Indian. On another continent, the nomadic communes arriving in Europe were thought to be Egyptian, but they were actually Indian.  

Linguistics has long established this hypothesis. The Gypsy language ‘Romani’ is based on Sanskrit. Apart from numerals, they share Hindi words like naak (nose), kaan (ear), aankh (eye), baal (hair) and churi (knife). They call themselves ‘Kaale’ (black in Hindi).

They are called ‘Roma’, a word that comes from Doma (house chief) or Domba. [As to how D changes into R, read my open diary week 9:2017]. In Marathi, Domba-ri is a travelling community of street performers.

A 2012 DNA research confirmed the Roma’s ancestry. A Y-chromosome comparison linked European Roma to men from Punjab and Rajasthan. Some 1500 years ago, their families began travelling from North-western India towards Europe in groups. Each group had less than one hundred people, and was headed by a person called the count or duke in Romani. It is speculated these people were the lowest caste, India’s untouchables. They might have left to avoid harassment from upper caste Hindus, or from the Moguls who had begun their attacks on India. If you look at the map, you will find that the distance between Rajasthan (India) and Yambol (Bulgaria) is nearly 6000 km. Interestingly, that entire route is Islamic land; Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. It could have taken them a couple of years to walk/ horse-ride that distance. On the way, most were obliged to accept Islam as their religion to avoid death. By the 13^th century, the Roma had spread across Europe.

Romani people have preserved their language and culture through centuries. They value freedom and independence. Their culture believes in the ‘here and now’ – enjoy this place and this moment without worrying about the future. In Roma culture, a millionaire is a person who has spent a million. He may be bankrupt today, but if he has enjoyed spending a million in the past, he qualifies as a millionaire. (A lesson for modern miser millionaires who will die without enjoying their money).

Every 20^th person in Bulgaria is a Roma. Bulgarian Roma are either Muslims or Orthodox Christians, but they speak Romani, the Sanskrit-based language. You can change your religion in a matter of minutes, but you can’t change your DNA. The Romani people were the first Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).

Legend, or myth?

One legend says a Sassanid Monarch, Baharam Gul, who ruled Persia during the 5^th century felt his subjects were becoming soul-less. He invited 10,000 musicians/entertainers from Hindustan. On their arrival, he gifted to each a bag full of wheat, an ox and some agricultural land. The ox would help them plough the fields; they would grow enough vegetables for themselves, and play music for the citizens in their free time. That was the plan. However, a few months later, the musicians approached the monarch. They had been lazy - not only had they finished eating bread made from the wheat, but also the oxen. Baharam Gul got so angry, he drove the Hindustani musicians out of Persia. Since that time, they have been roaming around the world always looking for a new habitat.

Of course, there is no historical basis for this legend. It sounds outlandish that a group of musicians from a vegetarian land should suddenly become meat-eaters and consume thousands of oxen.

Milena’s perception

Milena, an enterprising 30-year old Bulgarian lady, owns a shop next to where we are now staying in Plovdiv, the second largest Bulgarian city. Her shop selling chocolates, snacks, cigarettes, drinks, ice cream is open till midnight. She sleeps only for four hours a day, and her three year old son sits next to her playing video games in the shop. I managed to have a couple of long chats with her.

“I worry about the future of Bulgaria,” she tells me. “I’m struggling to look after one child. But the Tsigani (Bulgarian word for gypsies) women have 5-6 children. I get 200 lev a month as child allowance from the government, a Tsiganka gets 1200 lev. And everything is free for them. They don’t pay for water, for electricity. They live in large ghettos. The inspector who reads the electric meters is scared to go there. So, nobody pays the bills. We are subsidising the Tsigani population. And we are not a rich country.

“You know, officially, Tsigani are 5%. But lots of them write “Turks” as their nationality during census. So the real figure is much higher. And with tsiganki becoming pregnant all the time, this country will one day become a Roma country. I’m really worried about the future of my son.”

Roma Ghettos

Wherever a majority community complains about the “outsiders”, both sides carry certain perceptions about one another. The truth usually lies somewhere in between.

Milena’s worry is understandable. Stolipinovo, an area of Plovdiv with 50,000 Romani people is the largest Roma ghetto in Europe. The Plovdiv Mayor has called it ‘a Gypsy republic’. It is generally described as filthy and unsafe, with people living on top of garbage, children never going to school.  The non-payment of electricity bills is a genuine problem on which serious books have been written.

As I write this diary, Asenovgrad, another Bulgarian town, is organising protests every weekend. Following an incident in June, a few young Roma boys have been arrested. The protesting Bulgarians are demanding that all newly arrived Roma, more than 5000 of them, should be evicted and sent somewhere else. (Where to send people whom nobody wants?)

The root of many of these problems lies in the history of the Roma.

Discrimination, marginalisation, extermination

Europe has historically hated Romani people. Probably for their alien looks, for their loyalty to their language and nomadic culture.

In the 17^th century, ‘gypsy hunt’ was a form of public entertainment. The Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm, an autocrat, had permitted all adult gypsies to be hanged without trials.

Closer to our times, Hitler targeted Roma along with the Jews for extermination. In the holocaust, half a million Roma were killed, 21,000 gassed in the Auschwitz concentration camp alone.

Between 1970-90, Czechoslovakia forcefully sterilized thousands of Romani women.

A cover of a major magazine in Switzerland said: They come, they steal, they go. In some European countries, the Roma children are sent to special schools for the mentally lagging. In Bulgaria, Romania and some other countries, many Roma were forced to change names and ordered to hide their shacks behind concrete walls.

In France and Italy, Sarkozy and Berlusconi used the Gypsy problem as a tool in every election. They promised forceful eviction of Roma from their countries.  

Many Roma have no papers. They call themselves ‘no people with no nation’. Despite several generations having lived in Europe, they remain stateless. EU’s free movement laws don’t apply to them.

The Romani people are trapped in a vicious cycle. Living in ghettos, born to illiterate parents, speaking in Romani language, the children are deprived of good education. With no papers, the Roma are unable to get proper jobs. Many of them are street sweepers. Those who can’t get even these lowly jobs beg or steal.

The Roma we met in villages were very decent. They were cheerful and educated. They worked on the farms to earn their honest living; had one or two children; appeared to be well assimilated in Bulgarian society. However, the stereotype of Roma is a politically protected, good-for-nothing bunch of people with large families, drinking, stealing and pick-pocketing. A Bulgarian proverb says: One who doesn’t work must not eat. I suspect it is directed at the Roma.

Hitler wished to exterminate Jews, gays, disabled people and Roma as part of his holocaust campaign. Jews, gays and the disabled have since that time been rehabilitated, even gaining respect and dignity in many places. Gays can marry and adopt children in some countries. Developed countries make sure the disabled have access to most facilities denied them in the past. Jews are a strong political and financial force. Roma is the only category that continues to be discriminated against, maligned, persecuted and marginalised.

Worldwide population of Jews and that of Roma is almost the same – about 16 million people each. Europe alone has 11 million Roma. But Roma remain the poorest, most vulnerable Europeans. They face poverty, exclusion and discrimination.

Fifteen centuries ago, when they left India, they belonged to the lowest caste. They were the untouchables.

Tsigani, the Slavic word, comes from the Greek Atsingani, meaning untouchable. Except for the fact that they are in Europe, fifteen centuries later Romani are still untouchables.

Ravi

Yes is No and No is Yes

For me, an Indian citizen, entering Bulgaria must rank as the smoothest border-crossing experience in my travelling life. And it was done without applying for a Bulgarian visa. Bombay, where I live, doesn’t have a Bulgarian consulate. The Bulgarian embassy is in Delhi. The thought of my wife, daughter and me flying to Delhi with our passports and spending days in the embassy waiting for visas was enough of a deterrent to cancel Bulgaria from our summer plans. However, a couple of sufficiently official-looking websites said Indian citizens may be allowed entry into Bulgaria if in possession of a valid Schengen visa. (Bulgaria is not yet in Schengen).

Once we succeeded in acquiring Greek Schengen visas, I had added Bulgaria to our Greece itinerary. The expression “may be allowed entry” is nerve-racking for anyone who has studied law. Will means will, and must means must, but the dishonest ‘may’ includes ‘may not’. When our bus left Thessaloniki, the north of Greece, for Bulgaria, I was a little nervous.

At the border of any European or North American country, Indian citizens are routinely interrogated. What’s the purpose of your visit? How long are you planning to stay? (Show me your return tickets). How much money are you carrying? (Show me your cards and cash). Who are you going to stay with and why? An American immigration officer when questioning my 10-year old daughter had ordered us, her parents, to not say a word. (He wished to trap our daughter into revealing any secret plans we may have had of migrating illegally). An in-depth scrutiny was done by a Vietnamese officer at the San Francisco airport. He asked me to draw a family tree to explain the exact relation with my host; where does she work and for how many years, when was the first time we had met (this cousin and I were born in the same year, so I honestly said I don’t remember the date of our first meeting), when was the last time we had met and why.

*****

We were the only non-Europeans on the Greece-Bulgaria bus. One hour from Thessaloniki, the bus stopped. A giant of a man entered the bus, and took our passports away. (Of course, the other passengers – Greeks or Bulgarians – didn’t need to part with theirs). My rucksack contained a file with our Bulgarian itinerary, insurance, money, credit cards. I waited to be summoned.

Fifteen minutes later, the bus driver came back and handed me the three passports. I checked. Each had two stamps: departure from Greece and arrival in Bulgaria. The bus started. Without moving an inch from our comfortable seats and without saying a word, we had crossed into Bulgaria. Bulgaria was added to my list of favourite countries.

Value for money

Blagoevgrad was our first stop. Browsing its centre for lunch, we were stunned by the prices. Bulgarian Lev is half of Euro. (Greece is possibly the cheapest Euro country, but we still felt the difference).  Bulgarian prices are a delight. Everything is cheap; food, transport and housing.

Trust me, when an Indian says a place is cheap, it’s truly cheap.

In marketing, big corporations call their cheap brands ‘value for money’. “Cheap” suggests low price as well as low quality. Whereas, “value for money” suggests the quality exceeds the price you pay for it. That is the case with Bulgarian food. Great quality at modest prices.

When looking for the address of the farmhouse where we were scheduled to go, I stumbled across a real-estate website. Selling prices in Bulgarian villages are comparable to rents in other European countries. At least four reasons for why housing is so cheap: (a) Bulgaria has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe. (b) Because of its low wages, no Europeans wish to move here, not even the Greeks. (c) The Cyrillic script is alienating. (d) Being the poorest country of the EU, with lowest average wages, Bulgarians have been moving to richer European countries for work. In the last 25 years, more than 1.5 million Bulgarians have left Bulgaria. That’s a large number for a country with a population of 7 million.

Your surname please

In a Telenor shop, I picked up a prepaid SIM card for 3 Euros. The girl at the counter started filling my details on her computer.

What’s your surname please, she asked.

Abhyankar, I said.

Sorry?

A-B-H-Y-A-N-K-A-R.

“Your spelling it out won’t help. I need to fill the form in Bulgarian.” She smiled.

“Oh”. I took a piece of paper and wrote in cursive handwriting “Абхьянкар”.

Looking thrilled, she began talking in Bulgarian.

“Oh, no, please.” I stopped her. “I don’t know your language, only the script.”

*****

A similar incident happened with Mukul, my brother, when he was living in Frankfurt. He and his friend from Jordan were out for a walk. At a grocery store, Mukul saw a magazine with Sachin Tendulkar on its cover. Sachin Tendulkar was India’s god of cricket. Mukul picked the magazine up, but he couldn’t read it. The script was Islamic.

“Sa-Chi-N Ten-Dul-Kar” (سچن ٹنڈولکر) read Mukul’s friend from Jordan. He began reading the article aloud, his eyes moving from right to left. Mukul watched him, fascinated.

“Mashallah, I can read the whole thing.” The boy from Jordan said. “But I can’t understand a word of what I am reading.”

“That’s amazing.” Mukul said. “I can understand every word you are saying but can’t read it.”

*****

Language and script are very different, though we usually think of them together. Mukul’s friend from Jordan could read Arabic, and as a result Urdu, the language of Pakistan. Indians understand Urdu (though can’t read it), because Hindi and Urdu are in essence the same language divided by two religions and two scripts. Urdu is positioned as Muslim, and Hindi as Hindu.

Religion played a key role in devising scripts. Script is like a code that brings your faith together and keeps other faiths away. Monks had the required education to generate scripts, time at hand to labour over them and religious power to enforce them on the masses. Saint Clement of Ohrid, a Bulgarian monk developed the Cyrillic script for the orthodox religion. (He named it after his Greek teacher saint Cyril). Russia, another Orthodox nation, chose it for its own language. It may sound odd that the Russian language uses the Bulgarian script. One hundred years ago, after the Russian revolution, Lenin and other intellectuals earnestly discussed switching over to the Latin script, so as to merge with the rest of Europe, but didn’t dare do it. Had it adopted Latin script then, Russia’s future might have been radically different. It is likely Russia would have been part of the European Union today.

Script is a strong political tool. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the Turkish reformer, replaced Arabic script with Latin. After the disintegration of the USSR, countries like Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan dropped the Cyrillic script that reminded them of their Soviet past, and swapped it for Latin. The Bangladeshi loyalty to Bengali was so fierce; it split from Pakistan to avoid the imposition of Urdu and Arabic.

The connection of religions to writing systems is obvious. The Latin alphabet is associated with Christianity, Arabic with Islam, Devanagari and its offshoots with Hinduism, and Chinese script with Buddhism (Sri Lanka a notable exception). Cyrillic script is linked to the Orthodox Christians.

Script is so important for religious identity that Sikhs in India devised Gurumukhi for their bible, Guru Granth Sahib, and subsequent use. Were Sikhs to use Devanagari, Punjabi would have become a mere dialect of Hindi, and Sikhism a minor sect of Hinduism. Gurumukhi elevated the Sikh identity. (In Pakistan, the Punjabi Muslims use Shahmukhi, a script based on Arabic).

The politics of scripts is such that in the ninth century, the clever Hindu Brahmins added a prefix Deva (God) to the Nagari script. A case of classical marketing. Divinity and superiority were added to the script, to the language that adopts the script, and the religion that uses the language.

In smaller towns of China and Japan, restaurant menus exclusively in local scripts make a foreigner feel unwelcome and illiterate. Before you come to Bulgaria, it is helpful if you learn the Cyrillic script.

A single standard script for all languages would immensely benefit the world. Restaurant menus and road signs can be read anywhere. The world will become secular. Rationally, I support this view.

As a language lover, though, I feel aghast at the thought. In our minds, there is an inseparable bond between our language and its alphabet. Using some other script for our language would look like African ballerinas performing Swan Lake. Possible, but weird.

Yes and No

Sorry for digressing with a long discourse on scripts. It’s just that Cyrillic script is among Bulgaria’s identities. It is EU’s only country to use that script. (EU has three official scripts. Bulgaria uses Cyrillic, Greece Greek and the remaining 26 countries use Latin).

Another identity of Bulgaria is yes and no. This week, I was talking to Grigor, the manager of the farm where we are now staying.

I: Grigor, are we going to Yambol today?

Grigor: (Shakes his head from left to right).

I: I thought you were planning to take us there.

G: (Shakes his head more vigorously) da, da. 

I: It’s ok if you can’t. We’ll take the local bus.

G: (Nods up and down) ne, ne.

I: Are you ok with our taking the bus or are you going to drive us to Yambol?

G: (shakes his head, again and again) I will drive you to Yambol.

I: Oh, you could have said it in the beginning. I’m sorry if we are troubling you.

G: (Nods, up-down nods repeatedly): No, no. Not at all.

*****

In Europe and America, you nod your head up-down to say yes. You shake it sideways to say no. Indians when saying ‘yes’ or ‘ok’ move the heads like a doll with a broken neck-spring. But Bulgarians nod up-down to say ‘no’. They shake them left to right, right to left to say ‘yes’. Try saying no while nodding, and yes while shaking your head. I admire Bulgarians for mastering this improbable synchronisation.

When talking to Grigor, I now try to avoid looking at him. It’s unnerving to watch a no-nod and a yes-shake.

Ravi 

Musings in Athens

The taxi driver who drove us from the Athens airport was a chatty type. Taxi drivers usually are. They like to project themselves as guides. By being helpful and conversational, they hope to get a bigger tip. In countries like Greece, it’s generally assumed that foreigners, particularly those landing at international airports, are richer than the local population.  I like to talk to taxi drivers.

The driver in Athens was different. His English was good. Instead of telling us about the passing monuments, he talked about Greek politics and economics. Instead of discussing weather, he asked questions about India and Hindu philosophy.

“What’s your education?” I asked.

“I am a mechanical engineer.” He said.

“So this is your side job.” Half statement, half question.

“No, this is my main job, my only job. The state our economy is in, where am I going to get a job as an engineer?” he asked, smiling.

*****

In 1991, when I lived in Moscow, hiring drivers was very cheap. Along with their cars, they cost 50 cents an hour. I had two, Sergey alias Seryozha –an engineer, and Vladimir alias Vlad, a doctor. For survival, they used their private cars as taxis. Russia boasted about its 100% education. Coming from India, where 67% of the population hasn’t passed the fifth grade, I felt envious about super-educated European countries. When will India come anywhere close to them, I used to wonder.

During the talk with the Greek taxi driver, I was no longer certain 100% education is such a good thing.  Unless you can get a job that your education deserves, an occupation that makes the best use of your professional training, what is the point of being super-educated? Underemployment is a recipe for permanent frustration.

*****

The same driver warned us about the strikes, demonstrations and protests held almost on a daily basis. Our visual and olfactory senses experienced the results. During our Athens stay, garbage collectors were on strike. Only when garbage is not collected, you can appreciate the work they do.

The young Greeks I spoke to were not particularly happy that they belonged to the EU or that their currency is Euro. In the past, I always thought austerity was a positive thing. I associated it with self-discipline, asceticism. But in Economics, it has a technical meaning. Austerity requires the government to spend less, and normally as a result the poorest sections of society suffer. Government spending on public welfare, including medicine and education, usually goes down. Employment falls, because new jobs can’t be created. Taxation goes up, leaving even less money in the hands of the common man. (In the UK, the labour party has been talking strongly against austerity as well).

It’s like somebody taking your credit cards away, and asking you to hurry up repaying your mortgage.

Credit may be a bad thing, but it inspires consumption which in turn inspires growth. The EU imposing austerity programs on Greece has created a chronic crisis. Greeks look stressed; they smoke everywhere, an unusual sight. Girls are rolling their own cigarettes (Roll Your Own: a cheaper way to enjoy nicotine). You can’t get better evidence of an economic crisis.

*****

Naturally, Greece has no Polish people, unless they are tourists. Last year, in England and Ireland, I was talking in Polish all the time. The shop assistants, waiters, plumbers, carpenters, bus drivers, even some police officers were from Poland. Migrants move from cheaper to expensive places. Things need to be really bad for a white person to migrate to Greece.

I saw a few Ukrainian girls as shop assistants, though. I had a long conversation with one of them. She admitted she liked Greece because the house rents were so cheap. Out of the 1000 Euros salary she gets for working 12 hours/day, 7 days/week, she manages to rent a decent flat (400 Euros a month), send something to her parents and survive. She wouldn’t think of marrying or having kids, though.

“How did you start talking to me in Russian?” She asked me. “My Slavic features?”

“Features, yes,” I said, “but mainly your red lipstick.”

Greek girls in shops use light lipstick, while the Ukrainian and East European girls, for some reason, use a bright red traffic light lipstick.

This reminded me of an incident from Moscow in the early nineties. My Russian wife (now ex-) and I were walking on Gorky Street, a prominent Moscow street that begins across the Red Square. Russia was, as usual, in a crisis. Many girls had taken to prostitution for survival. Gorky Street had several luxury hotels and shops. It was rumoured that some high class prostitutes carried a swiping machine, allowing their clients to pay by credit card.

During our walk, a huge police van suddenly appeared and with the efficiency and ruthlessness Russian police are known for, rounded up all the sex workers before we could blink. A girl taken to the police van had stood just a few feet away from us. A few days later, I narrated this incident to a Russian policeman who looked friendly and unthreatening.

“The road was full of Russian women. How did the police know exactly whom to pick? I’m very happy my wife wasn’t touched. But it’s completely random, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no.” He said. “It’s easy. Girls with no purse in their hands are hookers. No Russian lady will walk on Gorky Street empty-handed.”

“But if you guys know this, the girls must know it as well. Shouldn’t they carry purses so as to avoid arrests?”

“If they carry purses,” he said, grinning “how will their clients identify them?”

*****  

The Bangladeshis migrate to Greece, of course illegally, by crossing a small river from Turkey. They either bribe a boat owner or swim. During the crossing, they throw their passport and any other IDs into water. This is an old trick. You then land into a country as a stateless person. You have no papers, no name and you speak in a language nobody understands. Greece, as most EU countries, is then obliged to provide you with temporary documents, turn a blind eye to any unlawful trade you might run. Your files stay with the government for years. During that time, your wife and children remain in Bangladesh. If you are lucky, after 8-10 years, you become legal. At least cease to be illegal. Then you begin to wait for your passport. You dream of bringing your family to Greece. In many cases, the family reunion may never happen.

We met a young Pakistani man in the National Garden of Athens. He first talked of cricket. I congratulated him on Pakistan’s recent victory in the championship trophy.

“What do you do here?” I asked him.

“I sell smuggled cigarettes,” he said. “The Russian mafia smuggles containers of cheap Marlboro into Greece, and we Pakistanis sell them.”

It’s a risky business, but where you are officially called illegal, does the risk really matter?

*****

The Greek beaches are full of white men and women in semi-nude attire, a variety of lotions applied to their bodies glistening in the sun, lying on beach towels, at intervals swimming and then drying off, ordering drinks and food from the beach cafes, reading books, or doing nothing. The high temperature, a heat wave, humidity don’t matter to them. The key objective is to get tanned.

Many white people say they envy us Indians our lovely skin colour. They dream of becoming as dark as Indians by lying for weeks under the scorching sun.

If White people wish to become dark (the reverse of Michael Jackson), why does racism exist in the form in which it exists?

Gillette, the shaving blade company, had conducted a global research many years ago. The company proposed introducing an operation after which a man wouldn’t need to shave for the rest of his life. Thousands of males worldwide took part in the survey. Almost nobody wanted such an operation, even when absolutely safe. Many men may hate shaving, but the notion of a permanent clean face is gross.

I wonder if the Gillett story explains those sun-tanning Whites. As long as the tan is temporary, they are fine with it. Offer them a permanent tan, and I think most of them will refuse it.

*****

What I like most about Greece is its similarity to India. Last week, I mentioned our possible common ancestors as evidenced by linguistics. Though relatively poor and ridden with crises, there is a feeling of freedom in the air. People are friendly and smiling.

Beggars and dogs sleeping next to uncollected garbage; timetables designed to merely let you know how late your bus or train was; ads such as “3 Euros for a free Wi-Fi”, govt instructions such as “danger of landslides, walk to destination in 12 minutes”; a taxi driver not wearing his seat belt, smoking, and checking his phone while driving, opening the car window to throw out garbage, and when asked how much to pay for the journey telling us it depends on whether we want the receipt or not; super-long queues to Acropolis served by a single counter, with the girl at the counter taking all the time in the world over each visitor; instructions given by our Greek host that power will go off if AC is switched on at the same time as the geyser; both pedestrians and car drivers using common sense rather than the discipline of traffic lights; hardly any CCTVs, no turnstiles at the metro, and no ticket checkers (you want to buy tickets, buy them, if you don’t, don’t. A hefty penalty for ticketless travel, but we never saw a single ticket checker, possibly they are on strike as well); preserving ruins and ruining everything else; omnipresent plastic bags; old men sitting in the same chair on the road after you have come back from a four hour walk.

Through shabbiness, indiscipline, economic crises, the Greeks have warm hearts. When hearts are warm and smiles broad, everything else can be forgiven.

Ravi

The Olympics Story

Internet is not a source of all stories or knowledge, it can never be. Having watched many Olympics on TV, having run a few marathons (42.195 km), having read dozens of books on the subject, and having browsed the internet for years, I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about Olympics in general and marathon races in particular. However, after coming to Greece, I learnt new details about the Olympics and heard the story of the first marathon.

Ancient Olympic Games

The first ancient Olympic Games were held almost 2800 years ago, in 776 BC. Thereafter every four years, men from all across the Greek world gathered at the Greek town of Olympia. Olympiad was a religious festival, dedicated to Zeus, the sky-god. (Dyews, the Sanskrit equivalent in Rig-Veda, is the origin of the word Dev, meaning God in Indian languages. Indians and Greeks probably had common ancestors in times more ancient.)

The Olympics were designed to initiate young boys into adulthood. The participants didn’t represent cities or countries, but competed as individuals. Winning was the goal, not mere participation. Boxing, wrestling, pankration (a variety of wresting), four foot races, pentathlon (long jump, discus, javelin, sprinting, wrestling, chariot racing and horse racing) were the Olympic disciplines. Interesting to note that each Olympic sport aimed to develop skills needed in warfare.  

In every event, only a single winner was announced (not three). His reward was not a medal, but an olive wreath. The wreath was made of wild olive branches that grew at Olympia. Rich winners would pay poets to compose a victory ode in their honour to gain immortality. In later years, they commissioned sculptors to carve their marble statues.

All competing athletes were nude.

Nudity and application of oil

Like the marble sculptures we see in modern European museums, male bodies of the athletes were on display at the Olympics. Oil was applied on the body to highlight its contours. Nudity in sport was a norm in Greece. In gymnasiums, men always exercised naked. In fact, gymnasium originates from the Greek word gymnos meaning naked. [When I wrote a story called Nude Man in Gym (opendiary week 19: 2005), I didn’t know this].

Runners covered their male organs with a narrow leather strip, but that was to minimise discomfort while running rather than a result of shame.

Ironically, married women were not allowed to attend the Olympics, while unmarried girls attended in thousands. The athletes were in their twenties. An unmarried girl and her father watched the oiled, nude features of the athletes along with their sport performance before selecting a husband for the girl.

Shorter races were organised for unmarried girls (probably so that brides could be chosen). Girls were not nude. They wore loose, light dresses above the knees, but the right breast had to be completely exposed.

Ancient Olympics, exclusively held in Greece, went on for nearly 1200 years. Records suggest the last Olympiad was held in 393 AD. By this time, Greece had been under the Roman rule for a few centuries. At the height of his powers, the Roman emperor ‘Theodosius the Great’ wanted to impose Christianity as the state religion. He considered the Greeks as pagans. On his watch, major Greek temples were destroyed. Theodosius banned the Olympic Games. No Olympiad would happen for the next 1500 years.

1896: Athens: The first modern Olympics

After being ruled over for nearly 2000 years; first by the Roman and then by the Turkish Empire, Greece finally became independent in 1821. The Greeks wished to bring back the glorious traditions of their ancient past. The Olympics, though, was revived not by the Greeks but a Frenchman. Baron Pierre de Coubertin was a born aristocrat. He was an intellectual who had devoted himself to education. For years, he tried to introduce physical education into French schools. Paradoxically, Baron Coubertin failed in that attempt, but succeeded in organising the first international Olympics of modern times.

Coubertin was a fan of ancient Greek history. He founded the International Olympic committee (IOC). He spent years persuading the Greek government to agree to hold the Olympiad. An estate of a Greek business family Zappas sponsored the refurbishment of the stadiums. In 1894, it was unanimously agreed to hold the Olympics in Athens. Greece was, after all, the birth place of that tradition. Coubertin altered the ancient philosophy by declaring: ‘The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.’

Only Greeks could take part in the ancient Olympics. Modern Olympics would be truly international. The Athens Olympics of 1896 was an all-male affair. It was the only Olympics not to have a single female competitor. Women took part from 1900, and in 2012 London Olympics women participated in every sport.

The anthem for the 1896 Olympics was written by Kostis Palamas, composed by Spyridon Samaras, both Greeks as should be obvious by their names. The same anthem is played till now to open each Olympiad.

The 1896 Olympics was attended by more than 100,000 spectators. A marathon race, revived for the first time, would be its final event.

1896 Olympics Marathon race

The world was familiar with an ancient story, historically true or not, about Pheidippides, a messenger, who in 490 BC ran from the battle of Marathon to Athens (25 miles/40 km) carrying news of the Greek victory. He burst through the doors of the leaders’ meeting room, and could only say: “Greetings! Victory is ours!” before collapsing and dying.

This story often upsets the families of modern marathon runners. It should be noted that just before that run, Pheidippides was sent running from Athens to Sparta (140 miles/225 km) to ask the Spartans for help against the imminent Persian landing at Marathon. In short, Pheidippides died after running 265 km and not 40 km.

The Athens Olympics, 1896 decided to revive the 40 km race from Marathon to Athens. Until then, a marathon was known only as a legend, nobody in modern times had run that distance. (World’s oldest race, the Boston Marathon, started the following year, in 1897, inspired by the Olympics race). Would anyone be able to finish it? People were curious. The Australians and Americans came trained and were serious about their sport. The Greeks knew they stood no chance against them. As hosts, they were at liberty to include a few Greeks. They even bent protocol to include a shepherd. Being a peasant, the shepherd was not a gentleman, not part of any athletic club, a normal requirement for participation in those days. Fifty thousand people packed the stadium and thousands lined the running route. The race would end in the stadium. The Greek king and the two princes were waiting there to greet the winners. One Greek aristocrat lady had announced that she would marry the winner, if he was Greek.

The race began at 2 pm and every hour the tension mounted. Albin Lermusiaux, a Frenchman, was leading the race for a long time. He was followed by Edwin Flack, an Australian, and Arthur Blake, an American. Flack had won both 800 meters and 1500 meters and was tipped to complete the treble. Thousands of Greek spectators were cheering, though disappointed that the three leaders were not Greeks.

The Greek competitors, with nothing to lose, were relaxed during their run. Spyridon Louis, the shepherd who was allowed to compete, even stopped briefly to have a glass of wine.

It was a hot, sunny day. Those athletes who ran very hard at the beginning started falling like soldiers on the battlefield. The American dropped out at 23 km. The Frenchman soon followed. It seemed Flack, who was leading after 30 km would earn his treble. By now the shepherd, Louis, sunburnt and covered in dust had caught up with him. Two other Greeks were behind Louis. Trying to outpace Louis, Flack collapsed with three km still to go.

Louis entered the stadium completing his race in less than three hours. Two Greek runners finished second and third. The crowd went crazy waving their hats and Greek flags. The band played the Greek anthem again and again. The two princes showered flowers on Louis. Even the king was waiting at the finish line enthusiastically waving his hat. De Coubertin, in his memoir, mentioned the scene as one of the most extraordinary spectacles in his life.

In the following days, women sent gold chains and watches to Louis, men offered big amounts of cash. A few cafes offered free meals and coffee for the rest of his life, a salon announced free haircuts for him. Louis refused all the gifts. The lady who had offered to marry the Greek winner was relieved at his refusal. She had expected an aristocrat to win, not a peasant. Spyridon Louis remained unassuming, went back to his village life, away from the limelight. Forty years later, he led the Greek team at the Berlin marathon. The Greek language now has a proverb “to do a Louis” meaning to exert oneself in a supreme effort. The Olympic stadium in Athens in named after him.

The extra yards

Marathon runners often wonder why the marathon distance is 42.195 km (or 26 miles and 385 yards). Why not have a round figure?

For the 1908 London Olympics, indeed, the distance agreed was 26 miles. The marathon would start at the Windsor Castle.

At the opening ceremony, UK’s King Edward the seventh was in the royal box. Delegations of all nations were expected to lower their respective flags as a sign of respect towards the king. Americans refused to do so. Allegedly, their captain said: ‘this flag dips to no earthly king’. This had irritated the royal family.

The marathon finish line was 385 yards from the royal box. Irritated by the American insult, the British Royalty decided to demonstrate the power of monarchy. The king would not walk to the finish line; let the finish line be drawn to where the king was. To the distance of 26 miles, 385 yards were added. Since that day in 1908, marathon races all around the world have to live with those extra 385 yards (195 meters). Hail Edward the seventh!

Sport as a substitute

The other interesting thing I learnt about the ancient Olympics was that for the period of the Olympics all wars were stopped. It was agreed between warring states that the passage of sportsmen for the competitions would be safe. This was a truce and ceasefire, faithfully implemented.

Olympics equalled war minus corpses. It was a substitute for the gory battles. Olympics truly represented peace.

I would love to see that tradition being revived. Replace war with sports. Maybe organise an international Olympics in Syria.

As a minimum, India should start playing cricket with Pakistan again. As long as they play cricket, bats and balls might be the only weapons used.

Ravi