I stand enthralled in the very castle where the
‘thick lipped’, ‘extravagant and wheeling stranger’ with ‘a sooty bosom’, ‘the
lascivious Moor of Venice’ and of Cyprus, with eyes orbiting in their
incinerating sockets, smothered the ‘light out’ of Desdemona, a lady with a
skin ‘whiter than snow’, and famed to be ‘smooth as monumental alabaster’. The
fatal fault of the ‘maiden never bold; of spirit so still and quiet’ was that
she ‘fell in love with what she fear’d to look on’, bamboozled and charmed by
the raconteur Othello’s narratives ‘of most disastrous chances, of moving
accidents by flood and field... of the cannibals that each other eat, the
Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders’. I see other
visitors re - enact the murder, ‘it is the cause, it is the cause, my soul, let
me not name it to you, you chaste stars’, appealing to the non-existent
nocturnal guides. Other Shakespearean aficionados commit Othello’s suicide:
‘Soft you; a word or two before you go / I have done the state some
service…speak of a man that loved not wisely, but too well’, who ‘in Allepo
once.., smote … thus’.
This historic 14th Century ‘Othello Kalesi’ (Turkish
for ‘Castle’), with a bust of Shakespeare at its entrance in Famagusta, is not
the only attraction on the east end of a guitar shaped Mediterranean island.
Standing there, ignorant of other turmoil that the
cobbled Cypriot city had witnessed, my guide trains my sight to a desolate
ghost town silhouetted against the sea, barely a kilometre away. That is the
forgotten and Forbidden City of Varosha, or Maras, he comments. I realize that
I am at the midpoint of the cross – hairs where History and Literature meet.
The Varosha district of Famagusta, the "French
Riviera of Cyprus", a booming resort for the rich and famous, for
celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Brigitte Bardot, now
remains abandoned.
Pointing in the direction of a 9 storied, 7 - Star
Hotel, my guide observes that being the first day of a Waxing Moon; it was to
be inaugurated on the evening of 20 July 1974. Tables had been laid and
preparations were underway, including baking a nine – tiered giant cake. But
with the ‘Operation Attila’, dawn landing of the Turkish Military, everyone
fled, and what remains is a model ghost town, frozen in time, mannequins
exhibiting the same fashion - ware; shop racks, homes and holiday apartments
untouched for nearly half a century, lights glowing in buildings for years,
hotels and other buildings collapsing, leaving the eerie remains of the
residents, workers and tourists of the town, to decay.
Cyprus has suffered a chequered history. Acquired by
Venice, in 1489, ceded to the ‘Ottomites’, in 1571, a British Protectorate in
1878 resulting from the ‘93 Harbi’, while still under Ottoman sovereignty, it
was annexed by the British in 1914. The 1925 dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
turned Cyprus a British Colony. ‘Enosis’ sharpened the Greek - Turkish
hostility; in 1950, Archbishop Makarios demanded union with Greece, and in
1953, Colonel Grivas founded the EOKA.
Makarios became the President of the Republic of
Cyprus, in 1960, with a Turkish Cypriot as Vice-President and a constitution to
balance both sides. But a coup d'état of 15 July 1974 ousted Makarios and
Cyprus was partitioned five days later.
Ersin Tatar, the Prime Minister of the TRNC, has
announced plans to rebuild the resort.
Will this be the unobtainable ‘Promethean heat’ that
Othello aspires for?
Certainly, it can’t revive Desdemona, but could,
perhaps, ‘relume’ Varosha to its erstwhile glory.
Author’s note:
Othello, an arresting
storyteller, mesmerized Desdemona by narrating his military exploits. Her blind
love for him led to their marriage and their tragic deaths in a Cyprus castle
in early 16th Century. Four centuries later, another tragedy unfolded in the
resort town of Varosha, near the castle and Cyprus was partitioned between
Turkey and Greece. Visiting Famagusta, the author could relive both tragedies.
Shakespeare has immortalized the couple, but will Varosha regain its glory?
