Life

The Indian's gift

I think my first impression of America was when I landed at Chicago O'Hare Airport and I had to walk what seemed like a fifteen-mile hike to my next plane. But the impression that has stuck with me all these years is what I saw in the second airport where I was waiting for a connecting flight to my final destination, Oklahoma City. There, in a waiting hall no larger than my grandfather's living room back in Iran, I saw something that simply stopped me breathing! In the corner of the hall stood a statue of an American Indian. A tall, handsome, and muscular man, with long black hair cascading over his broad shoulders. He must have been at least six and half feet tall. His eyes looked directly forward, as if focused over the tops of some imaginary rocky mountains miles away.>>>

I Jumped For You

Dear Son, I wish I could tell you that your maman and I don’t still cry, but that would be a lie. We miss you more than ever and our hearts weep every day. Some days are better than others, of course, but not having you with us is still hard to cope with, but… we are doing the best we can. On this Nowruz I feel a flood of mixed emotions, just as your mother does. On the one hand, we both feel the heavy weight of your absence, but at the same time, we know just how much joy we had together over the years during Nowruz, and we don’t want to lose that like we lost you>>>

نوروز به هيچ ايدئولوژی سرسپردگی ندارد

تجربهء هفت هزار ساله به ما می گويد که اگر نوروز يک عيد و جشن مذهبی بود در همان نخستين خم کوچهء تاريخ از ميان رفته بود. اما نوروز، تنومند و با شکوه و زيبا ـ تکيه زده بر عصای ستبر جداسری (جدائی از ايدئولوژی و مذهب) ـ از راه بندان همهء مذاهب رد شده است تا امروز نيز در مقابل اين پهلوان پنبهء خرافات زدهء حکومت اسلامی بايستد و بگذارد تا نوکران حکومت شان تملق اش را بگويند، تاريخ و هويتش را معوج بازگويند و در لحظهء تحويل سال بسوی «عرش الهی» شان دست بگشايند و، در عيدی ايرانی، به زبان عربی التماس کنند که: «يا مقلب القلوب و الابصار...» >>>

کوه نخست

درسفری اخیر به تهران خود را برای اولین بار شیفته البرز یافتم. گویا یک آشنازدایی رخ داده بود که مرا دلباخته کوهستانی میکرد که سالیان سال با بی تفاوتی نظاره گرش بودم و این در حالی که هر روزم را با نگاهی به البرز آغار کرده بودم. باید سالها میگذشتند تا دور از وطن و در شهری عاری از کوه، به ارزش صلابت و استفامت البرزپی میبردم، چراکه علی رغم آنچه در طی قرون و اعصار بر ما رفته است، علی رغم اهانتهایی که به میراث فرهنگیمان منجمله تخت جمشید و پاسارگاد روا داشته اند، این کوه ها را نتوانسته اند از ما بگیرند. هزاران نگهبان هم که به البرز روانه شده اند تا از درهم آمیختن دو جنس جلوگیری به عمل آورند، کوه ها همجنان با استحکام ایستاده و پذیرای عاشقان عشق و دوستداران طبیعت بوده اند.>>>

Sign Language as second language

I am in a line at my bank. The Brazilian and the Italian teller are busy with the customers who crane their necks to grasp what the tellers are saying in their thick accents. The quickest of tellers—a short, stout young man who doesn’t have an accent—a real Canadian—with short dyed blond spikes, is not in today. There is a sign on his counter: CLOSED. I look at my watch. The Italian and the Brazilian take their time. Keep talking. I’ll have to grab something to eat on my rush to class. They don’t care. They just shoot bland smiles at the impatient customers like me. I see a hand waving at me from behind a desk at the other end of the counter. It belongs to a new teller—a young Chinese man who stands now behind the desk where new accounts are handled>>>

بوی بهار آورد باد

بهار، زمان نو شدن و زندگی از سر گرفتن طبیعت ، آغاز روئیدن و بیرون آمدن گل و گیاه از شکم خاک تیره و تار و رنگارنگ شدن باغ و بوستان پس از یک دورۀ سردی و بی رنگی ، همیشه یکی از مضامین مورد علاقۀ شاعران ایرانی بوده است. منتهی در هر دوره ای و در هر سبکی ، شاعران طبیعت را به صورتهای گو نه گون منطبق با شرایط زمان و مکان دیده، توصیف کرده اند. و از گرد آمدن همین گونه گونی هاست که سبکهای مختلف ادبی بوجود آمده است. سبکهای ادبی و شعری را در شعرو ادب پارسی انواعی است : خراسانی (ترکست انی) ، عراقی، هندی و شعر نو.>>>

نوروز در زندان

در راهروی بند سفره‌ای سراسری چیده شده بود و در دو طرف آن بچه‌ها نشسته بودند. در چندین نقطه از سالن، سفره‌های هفت‌سین پهن شده بودند. اسدالله و چند نفر دیگر از حواریونش! همگی با لُنگ کراوات زده و در طول بند رژه می‌رفتند و به شوخی کردن با این و آن پرداخته و به جشن و پای‌کوبی و شعرخوانی می‌پرداختند. یک نفر نیز اسدالله را همراهی می‌کرد که از او به نام” آقای فتو” نام می‌‌برد و با اشاره‌ی اسدالله از افراد مختلف با دوربین ساختگی‌ای که درست کرده بود، عکس می‌گرفت و تحویل آنان می‌داد. عکس‌ها چیزی جز نقاشی‌های ساده و ابتدایی بیش نبودند. مثلاً عکسی که ظاهراً از تواب‌‌ها می‌گرفت و به دست‌شان می‌داد، کره‌خری بود که چهار دست و پایش را هوا کرده بود. سیگارهایی ساختگی نیز به وسیله‌ی کاغذ، با استادی تمام درست شده بود که به لحاظ شکل ظاهری بسیار شبیه به سیگارهای واقعی می‌نمودند و در میان سفره‌ی هفت‌سین بند گذاشته شده بود>>>

Confessions of a Farsiholic

The first time I was fined for saying “Farsi” instead of “Persian” I didn’t fight the ticket because back then the action was all about French. French fries had become “Freedom” fries, ruining a flavorful shortcut to khoresh-e-gheimeh. Flag wavers claimed fried potatoes sliced lengthwise should never have been called French fries in the first place. There were “chips” to go with fried fish in England as early as 1864. Surely the US adopting fries in the 1930s, should have named this calorie bomb after her freedom-loving ally, and not after folks who would leave Iraqis in peace. The Francophile in me worried that the logic of Iran experts who said the term “Farsi” broke ties with prestigious Persia, could also apply to French culture>>>

Committee with a cause

According to the World Encyclopedia, cultural genocide is a term used to describe the deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for political or military reasons. Since coming to power twenty-nine years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been in a constant battle with the Iranian people as well as her culture and heritage. Over its life span, the Islamic Republic zealots have tried innumerable times to cleanse the pre-Islamic Persian heritage in the name of Islam. First, they declared war against the Persian New Year or “Nowruz”, and then, they attacked other Persian traditions and customs>>>

Man of dialogue

In addition to our shared interest in world peace and global dialogue, Alikhani and I shared something else in common: we had both suffered grievous injustice in America, and we had both brought civil rights law suit against the perpetrators of human rights abuse against us, in his case the US federal agents who abducted him and chained him to a bed for weeks, and in my case the rights abusers at Harvard University who framed me with a fictitious crime story in order to silence me. "We are comrades in suffering," I told Hossein one day and he chuckled, and I always felt he was one of the few people who knew the depth of my emotional pain caused by the blindness of American justice to my cry for justice>>>

Heritage on a store shelf

Tempers between the United States and Iran have flared over Iran’s nuclear program and its alleged intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have wondered if the two countries would ever find common ground. However, several controversial rulings in the United States federal court have resulted in just that: the United States’ Justice and State Departments have momentarily put aside their differences with Iran in order to protect several thousand Iranian cultural artifacts. The current situation that has Iran and the United States temporarily burying the hatchet is a delicate and controversial issue>>>