We were young, alienated Turks in need of a raw sound. Ozzy spoke volumes

Years after his breakup with Black Sabbath, when asked why he had to leave the legendary group, Ozzy Osbourne said: “I am not in the band any more because of musical differences. They were musical. Iwas different”

- Elif Shafak

That difference had not gone unnoticed by a group of young Turkish people in 1990, and I was one of them. It was a time of increasing political instability in Turkey. A military takeover in 1980 precipitated human rights violations, systematic torture and a crackdown on democratic freedoms. Ankara was a city of smog, bureaucracy and repressed dreams. I did not wish to repress mine. I wanted to become a writer. A novelist. I longed to write stories. Even the thought of it was strange, scary, nigh on impossible.

There was a music store I liked to visit, inside an arcade between a noisy teahouse and a shop that sold crochet dollies and painted wooden spoons. Whenever I went there I would walk through a tunnel of sounds: of dice rolling on backgammon boards, clicking spoons, crying babies ... and then I would step into that store teeming with people clad in black, like me. Very often, through the speakers would boom a very distinctive voice: Ozzy Osbourne.

Shortly after that, I moved to Istanbul and found a lively subculture that appreciated heavy metal. It was not breezy pop songs that we were seeking, or traditional ballads of courage, patriotism