Taken near Galatasaray Square on Istiklal Cadessi in Istanbul over Easter 2010
I don't know what musical instrument the old man was playing, but he had the most melodious voice that will forever haunt me. I will forever seek that voice and I will never find it. The singer was blind, completely lost in (what I think was a folk or Sufi) song while his grandson held the mike, interested and disinterested at the same time. The blind singer's wife sat behind waiting for him to finish. I stood mesmerised, trying my best to capture something to remind me of how I felt. The municipal cleaners tried their best to disrupt him mid song, but he was in another world. And when he finished, he calmly stood up, placed the instrument in its carrying case and shouldered it, took the stools in one hand and his grandson's hand in the other and went his way with his wife following them. And the voice was gone and I will forever search for it.
It really makes me sad that someone with such a mellifluous voice has to sing on streets, fighting with passing trams and cleaning trucks to be heard. But I don't think he cared.
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