Coming back from Simin that day, I was wearing a beige T-shirt with some English writing on it. And it was short-sleeved. Pressing my books on my chest, while trying to cover up the English titles, and walking through a most violent display of battlefield formations and maneuvers not on donkeys, but on mopeds and motorcycles, with swinging chains and waving knives.
I walked slowly and tried to disappear. I remember seeing an older kid, sitting with his legs in the joob, and holding his head; another one was crying, his head shaved. Almost everyone was screaming.
Walking up Youssefabad, I calmed down a bit, but somehow, I really never got rid of that shaking feeling again.
***
All of Tehran, and particularly Amirabad, Gisha, Youssefabad, I love you. I am proud of you. Unless we do it ourselves, no one can be blamed. Lack of enlightenment cannot be blamed on the primitive man.