Tahir Shah's Blog, page 4
March 26, 2014
Top 10 Worst Things to do Before a Journey
10 WORST THINGS TO DO BEFORE A JOURNEY
Think too much.
Spend too much on needless expensive equipment.
Plan more than two days in advance.
Boast to your friends and family where you’re going.
Pack too much. Two changes of clothes are more than enough.
Ask pseudo friends from work to come with you. Go alone!
Read up on more than the basics about where you’re going.
Doubt that you’ll have anything but an amazing time.
Get anyone to plan your journey for you.
Expect that you’ll make money from the trip.
March 15, 2014
Top 10 Favourite Travel Moments
This is the first in a series of top ten lists. I hope you enjoy them!
Reaching the top of the live Nyiragongo volcano in Congo.
Crossing No Man’s Land between Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Camping on the actual equator in Kenya.
Taking Ayahuasca with the Shuar tribe in the Peruvian Amazon.
Wandering the streets of Fès in the light of a full moon.
Slipping under the locked iron door of a sealed pyramid in Egypt.
Trekking through the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan.
Crossing the Pampas in Argentina by train.
Waking up on a hillside with yaks in Tibet.
Being pulled up the cliff face of Debra Damo in Ethiopia.
September 25, 2013
Casablanca Blues Book Launch in London
Are you free on Sunday, 20th October? Join me in central London for the book launch of Casablanca Blues. It’s a small event and tickets are limited. I’ll be presenting my new novel, Casablanca Blues. I’ll also be available for book signing.
I’d love to see you there! The venue has just allowed me to release more tickets, but they are going fast, so do sign up now if you’ll be in London on 20th October.
You can sign up below using the Eventbrite form:
Sell Tickets Online through Eventbrite
June 27, 2013
Eye to Eye, not to be confused with EYE SPY
Is this a wild coincidence, or a message to me from the Universe?
(Another Tahir Shah, also obsessed with eyes).
Hmmmm…
As a side note, the paperback edition of EYE SPY should be out in the next 6-8 weeks. In the meantime, I’ve set up a contest on Goodreads to give away 6 signed advance copies on July 25th. That means that if you win a copy, you’ll have it before the book is available for purchase.
Enter now for a chance to win: http://bit.ly/14s2oQq
June 5, 2013
Q&A on storytelling and tradition…and The Tale of the Sands
You are creating wonderful stories about what our heart is telling us, but today more than ever we fail to reconcile our heart and our mind. Why are they tugging us in different directions? What do you do when your mind shouts louder than your heart?
As you say, I am telling and creating stories, and that’s what’s so central here. Storytelling appeals to the default setting of mankind, the core programming that’s in-built within us. We don’t really know why, but culture is arranged around storytelling – revealing information, ideas, and entertainment through stories. We can’t help but retell experiences in this way because we are programmed to do it. And, bizarrely, most people have forgotten that humanity operates with stories as their language. I sometimes find myself wondering whether other animals, or even insects, do the same and tell stories as a matrix like we do.
At the same time as live to tell stories, we reside in a world that’s so incredibly at odds with the realm our ancestors knew. Yet, in this mad frenetic, frenzied stew of life, it’s the stories and the storytelling that present themselves as a recognizable thread – a kind of communal backbone to humanity. We grasp hold of stories whether they be in the form of a book, a Tweet, a blog entry, a TV commercial selling soap, a movie, or even in the guise of a video game.
You mention your father very often in your works. Would you say that your story is a sequel to his? To what extent are our hearts beating together with those of our ancestors’? Does our storytelling begin where theirs has stopped?
I mention my father quite often because he was the central storyteller in my early life. I always come back to him for that reason, and because he had such a valuable and perceptive understanding of human nature. The stories we tell and retell have indeed all been told before – for countless centuries. And that’s what’s so magical: that the stories are a kind of intellectual and cultural grooming for humanity. We tell children tales as they drift to sleep, because they are so reassuring, like being stroked with a tender hand. And, we use stories to pass on ideas and information that are so central to the condition of being human. It always amazes me when I hear business leaders saying stuff like, ‘Wow, storytelling’s so in fashion right now.’ The reply is that it’s never not in fashion because storytelling is something which is completely tethered to civilization.
In many cultures there is a belief that we have invisible protectors. Have you ever felt such a power in your own life? Are there moments when feel “supported” by a higher power? And if so, how do you express your gratitude afterwards?
I can’t really comment on this, except to say that I feel certain things inside me, things that imbue me with a kind of power. When my father died in 1996 I wondered how I’d cope without him. But then I came to see he was inside me, just as his father was inside him, and so forth. I’m not being silly and schmaltzy about this but quite level-headed. It’s not so much an emotional thing to me as a practical one. When in a daunting situation, I say to myself, ‘This looks off-the-scale hard, but if I break it down and look within myself I’ll be able to disentangle it, and to make-do.’ To me, it’s all about searching for experiences that lie within us, the kind which are passed on like an invisible baton between one generation and the next. If you don’t know what I mean, consider the story of The Tale of the Sands, in which the desert reminds the stream that it was once in another form –and that to succeed it had to remember that form and use it once again.
Here is the tale:
The Tale of the Sands
Once there was a stream, a lovely cool, clear stream.
It was created from melted snow in the high mountains, and it flowed down through all kinds of rock, until one bright morning it reached the desert.
The stream was worried, but it knew that its destiny was to cross the sand. So it called out, “What am I to do?” And the desert answered, “Listen, O stream! The wind crosses my sands, and you can, too.”
The stream didn’t listen. He let his water roll forward. The first drops disappeared without trace.
‘“Desert! Desert!” he called, “You are sucking me up!” The desert was old and wise, and grew angry at the foolish young stream. “Of course I am sucking you up,” replied the desert, “because that is what deserts do. I can’t change. Please listen to me, and allow yourself to be absorbed into the wind.”
The stream was far too hot-headed to listen. He had his pride, and was happy being who he was. “I am a stream,” he shouted, “and I want to stay a stream!” The sand, growing in impatience replied again: “O foolish stream! You must throw yourself into the wind, and you will fall as rain. Your droplets will cross mountains and oceans, and you will be far greater than you are now. Please listen to my words!”
The stream did not believe the sand, and cried: “Desert, desert, how can I be sure you speak the truth?” The desert rose up in a sandstorm and called, “Trust me, O young stream, and think back, surely you can recall being in another form.” The stream thought hard, its waters swirling as its memory worked. Then, gradually, it did remember… it remembered a time when it was something else.
“Let yourself rise up!” cried the desert, “up and up into the wind!” The stream did as the sands ordered, and let himself rise in a curtain of mist, until he was absorbed in the wind. It felt wonderful, and right, as if it was meant to be.’
Please tell us more about your books. Do you just leave your life to lead you, or do you collect information in a particular way? Are your personal experiences sufficient to write a book such as In Arabian Nights for instance?
I write about things that interest me. And, I write for myself. Those are the two tenets of my writing career. I look at times I’ve written about stuff that did not interest me, or times when I was writing to please another, and I ended up failing. Success has come to me when I have been totally enthralled by a subject, an idea, or even a dream. Personal experiences are, in any form, a powerful medium. There’s nothing odd about that. But the big point is that even the smallest personal experience can be honed and crafted. It doesn’t have to be lavish and sprawling. It can be nothing more than a momentary snapshot of life, a snapshot that forms the most magnificent seed.
The dervish culture and the Sufi philosophy have many admirers in Bulgaria. Is it still alive in the contemporary Eastern society? And what is the path to becoming a part of this ancient wisdom, to accepting it for your own?
There’s a danger out there. I’m going to explain. During his lifetime, my father made available in the Occidental World a body of material and ancient wisdom that has for centuries been used in the East by Sufis and by others. He translated thousands of ancients texts, some as old as humanity itself. He fashioned these texts into a form that could be received in the West. Over the decades that his work has been out there, it has permeated all levels of society and has in many ways come to form a foundation in certain Occidental thinking. But the danger now is that this work is being lost in the East.
The scourge of Al-Qaeda and fanatical thinking is leading to an abolition of Sufi thought across the Islamic World. All you need is to look at what happened recently in Timbuktu, or in the Taliban’s Afghanistan, to see the proof. The answer is to reintroduce this work to the East. In our family we see this as an enduring responsibility, one that we must attend to in any way we can. It is astonishingly important to us – just as it should be to anyone with one foot in the East and the other in the West.
The question how to bring up our children is giving rise to much controversy lately. They are now living without the thread of tradition. Do you think that goodness, modesty, wisdom still hold good in our world? How can we pass these values on to them?
When we were children we were brought up to be ‘good’ people. It probably sounds stupid, but inner goodness is something that’s important to me. A great example of this is doing acts of anonymous charity. We have been encouraged to help people but to do so in such a way that they – and others – don’t know about it. I teach Ariane and Timur that being a good person – and giving more than you take – is the right way to behave. I’m not interested in tradition for the sake of tradition, so much as tradition that has real value, the kind of value that can open our eyes. I am a huge believer that children must travel and be exposed to different things well out of their comfort zone. They must learn to question things, and to observe the obvious in new ways. I believe strongly that children should be kept very much as they are – without being reprogrammed by the idiocy of adults. After all, children come to us instilled with the default setting and innate level-headedness of man.
What are you working on right now?
I am writing a novel called PARIS SYNDROME. And I am finishing the edits for another novel I wrote earlier in the year called CASABLANCA BLUES. I have seven other books in the pipeline as well.
Nothing makes me happier than working on several things at once.
May 30, 2013
New Release: Three Essays
I’m very pleased to share with you the release of these three essays. Those who have read Eye Spy will be especially interested in the essay on cannibalism. They are all currently available online as individual purchases, and the three essay bundle will be available very soon.
The Legacy of Arab Science
The Kumbh Mela: The Greatest Show on Earth
Cannibalism: It’s Just Meat
May 29, 2013
Q&A on Writing and Travel
1. The explorations and adventures in most of your work are set in exotic places that are shrouded in mystery and rich in history and tradition, and it seems as though you have traveled just about everywhere. Do you happen to have any connection with a small and relatively mainstream place like Belgium?
When I was a child, I was sent to stay with friends at Ypres. I was eleven years old, and I remember the visit vividly. Of course I have returned to Belgium time and again since then, but it was that winter journey that is so burned in my memory. My sisters and I were taken to the Great War cemeteries there. I can see the headstones now – all lined up perfectly, glinting white in the flat winter sun. I remember reading the names and ages of those men. They were so young – their lives having hardly begun. A day doesn’t go by on which I don’t think of them. And it is for them that I remind my children daily: Carpe diem! Seize the day!
2. I recently heard you tell a student group that they could and should be explorers. As far as I know, there are no significant mysteries here in Belgium, though there is a great deal of history. What sorts of explorations do you think have yet to be pursued here? What do you think is the best way for parents to make explorers of their children?
We live in a world that loves to champion the cult of celebrity. We huddle around pictures of famous actors and explorers on our televisions, amazed at how famous they are. But I’m someone who thinks that’s all nonsense. Celebrity is the most empty of causes, something that should fill us with horror, not glee.
The same goes for the idea of exploration for the sake of exploration’s sake. It’s a lost cause – something with little or no meaning. Yes, can certainly all be explorers, but more to the point is that there is worthy exploration to be done everywhere… Whether it be at the end of your garden, or in the backstreets of your village or town.
What’s important is to change the way you see things – look with fresh eyes, in the way that a visitor to a new country sees all he encounters. Look for the ordinary, because in it, the greatest wonders are waiting to be discovered.
3. You were born in the United Kingdom and currently live in Casablanca, Morocco – and you have been an ex-pat in many places in between. What are some of the rules for being a good ex-pat that are especially important to you?
There’s really only one rule, and it should be printed out and pinned up in every ex-pat home: respect the country you are living in – the values and the customs. We are living in a large house in a Moroccan shantytown and so perhaps I am reminded of this more than most. But I have had to learn to be incredibly ‘sensible’ as the French say, to the culture of Morocco. We don’t hold wild parties or ever try and stick out – the name of the game is blending in. It drives me CRAZY when, for instance, I see European women walking the street in tank-tops in Ramadan. It’s wrong, because that’s a time of religious understatement. As visitors in another country we must be sensitive, and we must behave, and we must fit in. It may sound like a cliché but, believe me, it isn’t. It’s what’s right, and if we don’t like it we can always leave.
4. Most of us have a story to tell, but struggle with knowing how to transcribe it; getting started seems to be the most difficult part. Do you have a particular formula for transforming your own adventures into books? Do you begin with a planned outline, or do you allow the story to evolve on its own as you write it?
Yes, I plan. I plan and I plan, and I plan and I plan. But more than that, I turn ideas around in my mind. There’s nothing like considering an idea as you drive down a bumpy road, or walk by the ocean, or lie back in a bath of warm water. Thinking about an idea – even only half-thinking about it – is a good thing. An even better thing is describing it to someone who will listen – because by doing so you’re forced to fill in the blanks and to elaborate. As for writing, I follow a rigid schedule. I write between 3,000 and 3,500 words a day, every day, until the book is complete. I never have a day off because, as you say, getting warmed up again is the hardest thing about the writer’s craft.
5. Your latest novel, Eye Spy, is available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle. E-books are certainly practical for those of us living in places with limited book offerings in English, but a Kindle is not quite the same as holding that bound mass of paper. What do you think will be the future of the bound book, and does it worry you as a writer?
I have seen the future. And it’s simple. Beautiful books – nicely bound and printed on good paper – will survive. They will even thrive. Rubbish paperbacks, which fall to pieces in your hands, will vanish. They’ll be pretty much extinct within a decade. And thank god for that. I love beautiful books. But I also love books that are clear to read. I dislike lousy paperbacks that leave ink on your fingers. I’m thrilled that they’re on their way out, because they are a shameful slur in a world capable of producing wondrous printed books.
Yes, I decided that I would only bring EYE SPY out as an eBook, at least for the moment. I wanted to bring it out quite fast and to make it available at a low price (well under €2)… and the only way I could achieve this was to go the eBook route. We have to remember something here… that until a few hundred years ago people would copy books out by hand. And, before that, people had scrolls that were not really books at all. Things change. And, as human culture develops and grows, we advance. I am a fan of eBooks, although I, too, prefer printed books, beautiful printed books more than almost anything in the world.
6. As I read The Caliph’s House, I could not help thinking that the vivid images were perfect for a film version of the book. How do you feel about the idea of some of your works being adapted by the folks in Hollywood?
Most successful published authors have been approached by Hollywood, and I am certainly no exception. A number of my works have been optioned by Tinsel Town but, as of today, none has actually been made. Sometimes it’s irritating, but I don’t really mind. Besides, what I adore about the book writing process is that what I write is exactly what the reader reads. With film-making it’s very much a group effort. And, as a result, you quite often get a lowest common denominator situation – where no one’s really totally happy, but the screenplay is passed because it ticks all the boxes just enough.
7. Explorers and writers have active imaginations and wheels that are always spinning. What are some of the explorations or projects that are still on your to do list?
My to-do list is a long one, and it gets longer all the time. I love to go to new places and to see things for the very first time. But, more than that, I adore going back to the same places and seeing them again and again – as they age and as I grow older, too. For instance, I love going to Calcutta (now called Kolkata) and standing on Park Street, and watching the mayhem of life swish by. Each time I go there, I feel that I am blessed, that the world is too good to be true. But there are plenty of journeys I long to make – long journeys. I am desperate to travel from Cairo to the Cape (ie. Africa north to south), to watch as the great deserts give way to savannah, and as the savannah becomes the lakes of the Rift Valley, before turning to desert once again. I long to travel through the jungles of Borneo, and across the Australian Outback, and to explore the backstreets of Bokara and Samarkand. But, most of all, I dream of taking an old wooden chair and making the time, sitting outside our home, and watching – really watching – the world go by. Some dreams are easily within a man’s grasp.
May 28, 2013
Join Me for My Second AMA on reddit
I’ll be holding another AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit on Friday, June 21st. To participate, just head to the IAmA subreddit on June 21st and look for my post. I will also share the direct link on that day.
Please note that in order to ask me questions, you’ll need to sign up for a reddit account. Many people did this last year when I did my AMA. It only takes a minute.
Feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I’ve received many questions about Eye Spy, my bizarre new novel. So if you’ve been wondering what inspired me to write this book, join me at this AMA and ask away.
I’d appreciate it if you could please help me spread the word on this. Thank you! I look forward to seeing you on reddit.
May 24, 2013
Last Chance on Scorpion Soup
If you haven’t yet purchased your copy of the limited edition Scorpion Soup hardcover, now is the time to do so. I have uploaded it to Amazon, and the price will increase as of June 8th. This is your last chance to get it at its reduced price directly from my website.
I think I mentioned to you before the hardcover was released that I wanted to make it available to my readers at a discounted price before uploading it to Amazon. It’s been out for a few months now, and it’s time to shift the sales to Amazon.
Scorpion Soup is also available as an ebook:
También está disponible en español: Sopa de escorpión
May 22, 2013
Join Me For a Goodreads Q&A
I’ll be holding another Q&A on Goodreads on Wednesday, June 5th of this year. To participate, join the group. You can begin posting questions at any time, and I’ll answer them on June 5th.
Feel free to ask me any questions about my books, my writing process, my travels, or my move to self publishing. Or, of course, about Dar Khalifa!
I’ve received numerous questions about Eye Spy, my bizarre new novel. So if you’ve been wondering what inspired me to write this book, join me at the Q&A.
I’d appreciate it if you could please help me spread the word on this. Thank you! I look forward to seeing you on Goodreads.
