Next year, in Ararat
December 28, 2013 | 22:30
Armenian News-NEWS.amcontinues Arianne & Armenia project within the
framework of which Arianne Caoili tells about numerous trips across
Armeniaand shares her impressions and experience of living in Armenia.
Next year, in Ararat
Topping the charts in 1951, Rosemary Clooney’s biggest hit, Come on-a
My House, was innocently penned one fine American day by cousins Ross
Bagdasarian (creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks) and immortal author
William Saroyan. Melodically derived from an Armenian folk song, it is
a call for companionship to be held at the most sacred of places – the
home, abundantly littered with cakes, candy, apricots, and of course,
pomegranates.
Winter has arrived and New Year is upon us. The leaves have turned a
darker shade of red in their daily transition to dried up brown.
Ararat seems more imposing. Sewn into the neck of the earth like a
majestic head, it sits impregnably on an ancient throne, on a land
from which nations have originated, and to which people flow unto to
worship. Its imperceptible, snow-capped crown casts an inescapable
shadow all the way from crossing Haghtanakbridgeto the shores of Sevan
to the grassy valleys of Shirak and across the balding spots of
Ashtarak. It looms exalted over the city as a reminder of what once
was and what could be.
When talking to most Armenians around town, the period around New Year
appears to be a time of congregational whining: it is darker, more
depressing, everything is permanently cold, they see the same
left-over pig for seven days, their credit has stretched beyond the
capacity of their future cash flow and faces on the street constrict.
The cold oppresses sincerity to no more thanhurried half-smilesand the
anxiousness of turning the gas on and off ticks nervously in the back
of people’s brains.
The invitation to Come on-a My House for the New Year appears to be an
awkward burden borne by all parties, whether it is a ritualistic
mourning or celebration or the usual merry-go-round that is the
Armenian New Year (homes where death has brought the inevitable or
where new life has breathed its first will be visited as a priority).
The ride begins at around ten and finishes in the wee hours. After the
first hour of the incoming new year, prepare for just about anyone to
drop in.
In Australia, our yearly restitution is reflected in Christmas Day and
the ‘gift list’: who (necessarily) to buy for and what to buy –
questions rashly answered in a commercial blizzard the week before
December 25 (having all forgotten that “it is more blessed to give
than to receive” for the last 350 days of the year). All of this lust
and hasty lashing out culminates into a miserly few minutes of an
excitable gift unwrapping ceremony and a day of communal gluttony (all
to be paid for by a big chunk of next year’s pay checks).
In the final week of the year that was, Armenian uncles, fathers, and
grandpas get ready for the big occasion by delivering the carefully
calculated grocery list; and on the final day of the year, the women
of the house arise in the early morning to prepare for what is to be a
very long and expensive day (a day which brings either repressed or
expressed regret, but regret nonetheless – even if its answer is
ultimately found in the excitement of the discovery of resolutions
which will serve as regret for next year’s final day). Guests swarm in
and linger, and pasus dolma and blinchiki pile up on table tops all
around Armenia like casino chips on the successful side of a roulette
table.
Persian philosopher and one of the world’s very first self-diagnosed,
proud alcoholics, Omar Khayyam, half-rightly concluded that
Now the New Year reviving old
desires
The thoughtful soul to solitude
retires.
I can’t agree with the second part of Omar’s depiction. In Armenia,
the start of the New Year hardly brings any solitude. After (and
before, and during) all that eating, are all of the communal toasts to
usher in a year that is hopefully equal to or greater than the
previous year. Alcohol is poured and shared in larger, more convoluted
mixtures than all of the concoctions invented and meticulously listed
in VenediktErofeev’sMoscow -Petushki. On the first day of the bright
and shiny new year, your stomach declares war on your liver, being
fully injected with an indeterminable soup of various sources – a stew
that your sewerage has never known, but in or around the late
afternoon of January 1, will surely greet.
The accompanying salutes of drinking vary in emotional potency,
length, and sincerity, but nonetheless thekenats is the central point
of the Armenian New Year: define your entrance into the host’s house
as your signature on the dotted line, and your participation in a
toast as the fulfilment of your contractual obligation.
‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ (or rather, ‘Next year in the rebuilt
Jerusalem’, for Jews living in Israel), is the cardinal toast that
traditionally concludes the Passover Seder (the Jewish ritual
symbolising the Israelite’s miraculous exodus from their Egyptian
overlords). As summarised by Rabbi David Hartman, “the cup of hope is
poured every year. Passover is the night for reckless dreams; for
visions about what a human being can be, what society can be, what
people can be, what history may become”.
Is Ararat the Armenian Jerusalem? I think the answer, even if
restricted to a symbolical one, is yes. Although it is not a
physically acquirable asset, lying enticingly close across a closed
border, it serves as a constant reminder of disrespect at its most
destructive and inhumane, while also motivating generations to create
more from what they have been given. Its sheer presence alone – its
omnipresent and dominating presence, inescapable from any window pane,
city square, bridge, road or solitude street corner in Armenia, is so
much more than what Frank Westerman termed the “mythical mountain” in
his otherwise fascinating read, Ararat. It is more: because it unites
a thought, a joy, and a people.
Caught up in the frenzy of our zeitgeist of ‘living in the now’, we
shouldn’t ignore the past or the future: they both serve as signposts
and even an excuse for being a little pugnacious. Although Rabbi
Hartman’s description is almost exclusively future-inclined, it is
also about our actions and thoughts now, because it is these that
decide our tomorrow. Here is to next year, in Ararat. And Happy New
Year.
Arianne Caoili
News from Armenia – NEWS.am