TV tale
Soap opera
By
Peyvand Khorsandi
September 15, 2003
The Iranian
I met this Iranian young couple last night, a musician
and a girl who ate salad, who want to marry people with UK passports,
even if it means only one of them succeeding and they have
to split up.
My job is to find them a TV.
Two weeks ago I got my mum to pick up this big TV-set I had promised
to collect from a friend's house but didn't really want.
My mum couldn't believe she had a big TV in the back seat of her
car
with no destination and there was no way she would accommodate
it in the house.
As I live in south London, and my parents west, she was stuck
with it and very angry. Why did I pick it up for you if
you don't want it, she shouted. My thinking was that if you have
a working
colour television it won't be long before someone comes
along
you can give it to, so why chuck it?
My mum said had we not collected the TV we would not be
faced with what to do with it, but what harm can a TV
do in the
car, I said. It's too big to steal and heavy enough to
stop floating
if there is a sudden reduction in gravity.
Last night I phoned my dad and said what news of the
TV? He said your mum's bonkers, she's given it to Mehdi.
Mehdi
is
a mentally
ill relative who has little need for a TV and will
probably set fire to it.
There is one small TV set at my parents' house which
I don't use but as my grandmother watched soaps on
it in
the last
years of her life, it has some meaning for me, even
though it's a
grey box.
While I would be prepared to lend it to them, I would
want it back after five months, assuming they'd
go back to Iran,
but
what if they don't, what if they both stay - what
if they fall in love with the people they marry,
or one
does the
other doesn't
and there's all out war in Bounds Green? What will
happen to my grandmother's TV?
Tune in next week.
|
