KOVAČEVIĆ COLUMN: How Halid was connecting Miljacka and Romanija while others were separating them

Halid is gone, one of the last Sarajevo ronin, a sheher samurai whose armor illuminated the čaršija and cast lights far from that damp valley bathed in smog and veiled with snow.

Halid was one of those who made that Sarajevo, more gray than colorful, the cultural capital of Yugoslavia. A country that, if not by something else, like economy and freedom, could at least boast of its culture to the proud world.

Halid was a star, undoubtedly, but above all he was a man, a ‘raja’, someone who would send you a round of drinks in a kafana and sing before closing time, when everyone else had fallen down.

Halid was someone whom these rat-like times that are behind us but still follow us with their smell and taste, like when you step in dog feces, did not change one bit. In that unfortunate war and after it, there was at least some headline, some gossip, about every public figure that would question their humanity, their good name…

Only about Halid there were no headlines.

Except when he helped someone, and he did that so it wouldn’t be heard, so it wouldn’t be known.

And there is no Serb nor Croat from Sarajevo and Bosnia who spoke ill of Halid. Only kindly.

And when you live like that, you last, and you remain for eternity. In Halid’s case, not only the songs will be remembered, but him while he sings them. Both picture and sound. And a microphone instead of a sword.

Halid was and remained a ćuprija (small, stone bridge) between nations, generations, between sorrows and joys. Not a bridge (most), because known and unknown, hordes and herds pass over bridges. And only the chosen ones pass over a ćuprija.

Halid built that ćuprija every time he sang “Miljacka” and immediately after that “Romanija” in one night, when he connected the city and the mountains, which others so heartily tried to separate. Those who need to know, know what I am talking about…

Halid’s songs were like some balms that you could apply to your heart or your head, to whatever was hurting you more at that moment.

Halid’s songs were for me, a former Sarajevan, more than nostalgia, more than sevdah (melancholy, yearning feeling), a three-minute mental return to the city where I first loved, first suffered, some kind of consolation to know that it still exists, even if I never return to it.

And I could go on like this until tomorrow, but it would really turn into bathos.

And Halid was anything but pathetic, not a single song, not a single verse, nothing nja-nja.

Suffering, but upright. Death, but honorable.

Let’s remember him as such…