The newspaper in the airport talks about a Chagall exhibition, an opera performance and a Bach Festival&mdasha reminder that we&rsquore about to land in a city that famously straddles Europe and Asia.
At Istanbul airport, an anxious-looking Murat, who will be our guide for a week in Turkey, is waiting for us. &ldquoAre you Jains&rdquo is his first question. Murat&rsquos two passions are the food and the history of his city and, visibly relieved to learn we&rsquore adventurous carnivores, he now starts looking anxious again. &ldquoOnly two-and-a-half days in Istanbul, we have to hurry, hurry, hurry&hellip&rdquo
A Pluralistic Culture
An hour later, luggage hastily deposited in the hotel, we are at Istanbul&rsquos historic core, Sultanahmet Square, plunged into that seamless juxtaposition of civilisations and epochs, Orient and Occident, that mesmerises us throughout our stay in Istanbul. Here, serenely facing each other, are the Basilica of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, built a thousand years later. These are monumental emblems, respectively, of Emperor and Sultan, signature landmarks of a city that was the capital of two great world empires&mdashthe Roman Byzantine and the Ottoman &mdash for over 1,500 years. The great square between the two monuments is unmistakably an Asian maidan the touts are persistent, the hawkers raucous and food vendors carry their wares on baskets on their heads. But in the winding cobblestone streets radiating off Sultanahmet Square, Istanbul is a Mediterranean city of chic pavement restaurants and elegant houses painted in pastel colours. At one of them, like a poster girl for the city&rsquos multiple identities and cultures, sits a demurely headscarved girl in an all-concealing overcoat, smoking a cigarette and sipping a glass of wine.
The Hagia Sophia
There are many jaw-dropping sights inside Hagia Sophia, but none more so than the glowing mosaic of the Madonna and Child, flanked by two huge gilded roundels calligraphed with the names of Allah and the Prophet Mohammad &mdash a cameo that captures the historic moment when Roman Constantinople metamorphosed into Ottoman Istanbul and Hagia Sophia church into Aya Sofya mosque. In 1453, within hours of Mehmet the Conqueror&rsquos triumphal entry into the city (wearing sky-blue boots, according to a contemporary account), he headed to Hagia Sophia to offer Friday prayers. Mihrab, minbar and minaret were quickly added. But the next thing Mehmet did was to present a sceptre to Hagia Sophia&rsquos patriarch, personally escort him to his new church, and issue a decree that the city&rsquos Greeks, Armenians and Jews would have full freedom to practise their religion and livelihoods.