A minstrel's journey - Armenian Reporter

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Reflective moments reflections by Kay Mouradian The loneliness. That’s what I remember the most. And the shock of no longer being young – another reality I had to accept. In my late 30s at the time, I felt the pain of not having found “Mr. Right,” and I had to confront the possibility that maybe I never would. But I never gave up hope. Thanks to my travel addiction, I was looking for that guy in various parts of the world. Then, one day, returning from a ski trip in Australia, I came home to devastating news. My sister was in the midst of bearing her heaviest cross. Her breast cancer had been in remission for ten years, but suddenly it began to spread with a vengeance. Malignant tumors were metastasizing throughout her body. I was told she wouldn’t fully recover and that her time was limited. She was acting courageously, but I was shaken to my roots. I couldn’t face the reality of what was happening. My sister was going to die! No, I wanted to shout. She’s too young. Hurting and grieving, I was desperate for answers. I needed to understand my sister’s plight, and my painful need for answers was fierce. I was struggling. My heart was crying, Her cancer is so unfair. Why Why her I couldn’t fathom why this terrible disease attacked her at such a young age. Her illness and subsequent death at age 49 were catalysts into my search for deeper meanings with regard to the whys of life. My fun-loving attitude of having a good time and getting all you can get was crumbling like a Kay Mouradian is author of Reflective Meditation and A Gift in the Sunlight: An Armenian Story. great wall. I was in a state of confusion and no longer felt invincible. An old adage says that when a student is ready, the teacher will come, and I was in great need. That’s when some great souls came into my life. What they said were ideas and thoughts that for me were steeped in truths I understood. Maybe they will be of use to you as well. My teacher said: There is no death in this universe. There is only change. What you call death Is merely a change of vehicle. When there is no longer a physical pattern To hold it together, The body disintegrates. You can’t see the occupant anymore. You think it’s gone. But it is not. It’s just in another state. When man leaves his body He moves into what we call The Astral Plane And changes into another vibration of matter, One slightly less dense Than the physical one. Then we have what is called A Second Death. Those heavy with selfish thoughts and egotistical desires Stay in the astral body a long time. They become floating astral corpses In the plane nearest to the earth. But A n a v e r - age good man’s astral body Will disintegrate much more quickly. He will move onward into states of rest and recuperation And into the Halls of Learning. When karma is right He will reincarnate into a new physical body. As I reflected upon what my teacher said about death, I thought about our Armenian ancestors on that doomed march that took their lives prematurely. I wondered who and where they are today; and if they have reincarnated, have they become aware of the root causes that turns human beings away from compassion I thought about our Armenian ancestors and thought, can our Armenian community embrace compassion and lead the way to eliminating the hatred and fear Talaat Pasha embraced in his attempt to exterminate the Armenian race f connect: www.aGiftInTheSunlight.com C18 Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture 3/15/2008
still homeless in cyberspace homeless hagop ...two decades back, some six years before we would hear about the Internet, when big hair was fashionable and English literature was focused on apathy and indifference in the affluent America of the Reagan era, a group of young Armenians, fresh out of college, picked up their Hi8 cameras to show their community what was ravaging the homeland and what the diaspora needed to confront. There had been an earthquake, massacres in S u m g a i t , and talk of ind e p e n - d e n c e , and a weekly show called H o r i z o n would bring these stories to KSCI TV in Los Angeles every Sataurday at 5:30 P.M. courtesy of the Armenian National Committee. In those days of a somewhat lost innocence and naivety, when the sons and daughters of the diaspora were tipped that there was a homeless Armenian living on the streets of Hollywood, the would-be filmmakers and reporters took the cameras out after midnight to track down a man named Hagop. We gave him food, interviewed him as if he was an exotic animal in a zoo, then reported his whereabouts to local community service organizations. Then we forgot about him... Decades passed, the information age changed the world, and last week, inspired by memories of Hagop, L.A.-based artist Zareh sent his e-mail buddies a drawing of the homeless man. Hagop and his story, his life, had not faded away into oblivion. “It was always enjoyable talking with Hagop, and sometimes his words were wise and insightful, philosophical” says Zareh Meguerditchian. “Perhaps that’s why it was a good experience drawing him.” Zareh spent five-and-a-half hours drawing and remembering Hagop, and his drawing resurrects Homeless Hagop, who will now live forever through art and in cyberspace. “I remember Hagop telling me that he was from Cyprus,” says Zareh. “When he was young, he wanted to marry a very beautiful woman but she refused him. He married another woman later, and the two of them came to the U.S.” The tragic trajectory of Hagop’s life follows a path that many face in our paycheck-to-paycheck civilization. After Hagop’s business failed, his life became unraveled. He left his wife and ended up on the streets of Hollywood, the same streets that are dubbed by the Los Angeles City Council as “Little Armenia.” “Many in Hollywood knew and liked Hagop,” says Zareh. “He used to push a shopping cart full of bottles and cans down the street, and he spent m o s t n i g h t s sleeping next to the Fountain Theatre.” Zareh says he would run into Hagop sometimes, see Hagop eating at the Sassoun Bakery in Hollywood; and Zareh would often wonder if any of Hagop’s family ever came to look for him or visit him again. “He seemed to me a kind man with a soft spirit and without an evident mental illness as is sometimes the case of many homeless people,” says Zareh. His name was Hagop. Sevag K., Azniv K., and our Hi8’s couldn’t help Hagop; neither could the community service organizations we reported him to. Perhaps his lot in life was to walk the streets of Little Armenia. Perhaps his story should remind us how easily all of our lives can unravel. f connect: artistzareh.com Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture 3/15/2008 C19
Page 1 and 2: Minstrel’s journey Remembering ho
Page 3 and 4: A minstrel’s journey Claire Manoo
Page 5 and 6: skills and develop themselves profe
Page 7 and 8: part, Maestro Avetisyan describes a
Page 9 and 10: After the magic decade Aram Kouyoum
Page 11 and 12: ooks and experience the living lang
Page 13 and 14: other. Both moved to Vienna with th
Page 15 and 16: old sitting at the beach near Hasti
Page 17: graduate degree, an MFA in film pro
Page 21 and 22: Satellite Broadcast Program Grid 17
Page 23 and 24: aids around our heads and for its l

A minstrel's journey - Armenian Reporter

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