"Chitarra pigra" means "lazy guitar". It is a musical instrument that does not exist. Indeed not: it exists. Ömür invented it. It is not even a guitar and a bağlama. It has the handle of the bağlama, but the rest is an invention of Ömür. Has no harmonic box, but an amplification system. The name is "lazy guitar" because the tuning of the three double strings allows him to create major chords on the same key, without further efforts.
Ömür has started 2 months ago the military service in Turkey. Tomorrow he will leave again to the barracks. But in these few days of permission, he returned to Istanbul to make his girlfriend happy and has found time to organize a concert for his band, "Hariçten Gazelciler". At night, around 3, while removing the stage, after the concert, I came to embrace him. He has embraced me strongly and put his face against mine. He said: "I am a soldier, I have no more a guitar in hand, but a rifle. I have to kill before they kill me". It is strange in 2009 to hear still these speeches. But here we are in Turkey, not in the mind of a naive young man with so many western dreams, illusions, and even more especially no contact with the reality of the real world.
But I replied: "Please leave him alive even if he is my enemy" ... He looked at me with his eyes lost in a vacuum, he was drunk, he tried to chase away the thoughts, without saying a word. Then I added: "the lazy guitar makes people dance, your rifle doesn't". He looked with the same look. I have not resisted. I had a knot in my throat. Özhan has approached and we embraced all together. Then I released from the embrace and I walked home.
It is hard to hear, especially if with such a guy you shared in the past magical and unforgettable moments. My weak heart is not strong enough yet. Sometimes these days I tell myself that I am not yet fully myself. But walking back home in the rain I thought that maybe I was never really myself like today. With all my limitations, but also with all my certainties.
