Sacred Places film

I got back to Dushanbe and was thrown into working on making a film on Tajkistan’s sacred places. This anthropological project was one of the results of four years of research by the Anthropological Centre under Professor Muhammadali Muzaffar. The project was funded by the Christensen Fund USA and was thus something that we had to complete before their planned visit in exactly five days time.

So, F sent me the English text for the introduction which I then edited. Most of it was taken from the English version of the Professor’s books on Sacred Places. But some he translated himself, his English is excellent – so I was just there to put it into native speakers speech and to transform a body of information gleaned from various sources into a continuous text which flowed and would sound right on film.

Then there was footage from two groups of mazars: from Badakhshan and from Sogd, which Farid watched and tried to discover which mazar was being discussed. Sometimes not an easy, or an impossible task. Professor had met with the mazar keepers or mutawwali and listened to their stories about the myths and legends which surrounded their mazar. He had also talked to visitors there, about the purpose of their visit.

The Badakshan mazars were in the high places, centred on springs, trees and sacred stones, those in Sogd were more often the graves of famous people set in city graveyards.

There was a lot to do.

As F watched the films in the evening I sat next to him, not watching the footage but copying out the information from the books, editing the English as he discovered that they were talking about one mazar or another. Mazar of Khoja Abdullohi Balogardon, Mazar of Khoja Ayyubi Ansori, Mazar of Khoja Shakkar Husayn and Mazar of Zaynalobiddin. They were names to conjure with.

The stories were fabulous, talking of men coming out of the river bearing gold and water brought through the rocks of the mountain to gardens, of kings killing their baby sons for looking on the faces of his harem and children disappearing into the mountain but leaving their handprints behind.

And I copied them out of the book, understanding that these were not fables but truth to the mazar keepers as well as F and the Professor.

Each night I slept at the Professor’s house in their visitor’s room, where we had eaten the Eid feast on my first visit.

In the daytimes we went to the radio station, passport in hand to give into the security on the door. Through once grand corridors – worn and torn like most things in Tajikistan. But like many things on the eve of the 20 years celebration being repaired. Remont is everwhere.

Up on the first floor F was working with a young guy who could use the film making program, who went by the great name of Mohammadamin Mohammadaminov (which was difficult to fit into the credits!). He was a sound engineer by trade who was hoping to get into film work.

He worked in an office with two other guys, all of whom seemed to spend their time turning their speakers as loud as possible to do whatever work they were doing, or games they were playing, so that the joint cacophony of sound was annoying in the extreme. I couldn’t write there and in the times where I wasn’t recording, looked for a quieter place to work, in a random person’s office or studio, they must have thought who is this woman!

And my recording, I went down to one of the studios on the ground floor and there, the other side of a soundproof door with glass between me and the engineer and two large mikes in front of me, I recorded the text that I had written the night before, changing tenses modifying words spinning it into a story. And I read it like a story as well. F wanted it slow and so that’s what I tried to do, even if at times it was hard to take the tone of my voice seriously – I sounded like I was reading from the bible. But it was serious, and it was about the sacred. So a certain timbre seemed appropriate, or just laughable depending on your point of view. I leave to people to judge - once its on youtube!

During the recording the most difficult thing was the names, to say them naturally and correctly! Especially those with many syllables. Here I did my best.

After the recording I sat with the sound engineer and J as he deleted my pauses and tried to remedy where I had tripped up or garbled a word or a name. I got better at just repeating the offending phrase, so that less time was wasted trying to cut just that part out of the file. Not an easy task when the sound engineer does not speak English!

And then that file was saved on Mohammadamin’s computer and they took it and meshed it with the visuals to create the film.

I never thought that we would get it done in the time we did. F and I worked all the hours of the day. I felt that somehow I was giving birth to something, so being looked after by the professor and his family with care as I worked hard.

The next day, as I was once again at F's house, collecting my bags, I had lived like a hobo for the last two weeks, with contact lens fluid in one place, cleanish clothes in another and my laptop in the third. It was only my laptop that I was sure where it was! Going with me everywhere like my daemon.

We drank a couple of beers as he had promised in the dark period between days two and three, when it seemed as if we would never finish on time, and watched the film. There were a few points that I would have changed, mostly with what I had done. But in general I was really pleased, as were F and J.

And now it is finished. For a day I hardly knew what to do with myself! I had spent the last five days doing that and the last five days before that with N , so that at no point was I either on my own or able to do my own work.

The last couple of days have been staying with J , who as I write is singing a sweet sad song as she gets ready for us to go to the Professor’s house for lunch.