It is hard to believe that twenty years have passed by since those turbulent days of the revolution. I can vividly remember looking out the window of my room at the demonstrators. Our apartment was on Farvardin Avenue facing Allahyar Saleh's house. I was only a child, and those shouting demonstrators didn't seem extraordinary at all; they seemed to be a part of daily life. Many of them were university students and most of them showed their hatred and hostility towards the Shah and his regime.
The demonstrations appeared to originate from the campus of Tehran University, only a couple of blocks away. In fact, whenever I think of the revolution, images of the university come to my mind; the multitude of shouting students on Enghelab (Shah Reza) Avenue, young and old holding pictures of Khomeini (some showed him smiling, some showed him with a frown), the many bookstands which sold those pictures as well as all kinds of books and tapes.
My mother sometimes took me inside the university which had become a hotbed of anti-Shah meetings and lectures during and immediately after the revolution. Despite the presence of so many people running around, the campus appeared beautiful and serene. And in the spring of 1979, tall trees and blooming flowers gave the university an extraordinarily magical look.
On a recent visit to Tehran, I went there for the first time in nearly two decades. The campus looked as beautiful as I remembered, and the buildings seemed unchanged since the days of the revolution. But revolutionary graffiti and small posters of Khomeini had given their places to larger-than-life murals depicting Islamic leaders.
Here are some photographs:
. University of Tehran entrance gates
. Law Library
. College of Engineering
. Decorative art: “Mohammad”
. College of Medicine
. Medical student in the garden
. University bus
. Mural: Khomeini and Khamenei
– Send a comment to the writer
– Send a comment for
