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The Fusion Confusion

Ever since I can remember, I always had a taste for the bizarre. Food combinations that pregnant women wouldn’t dare crave. In order to satisfy my bizarre craving, I always need something savoury with a hint of sweet. I start each morning with 2 slices of granary toast, one with Marmite (You either love it or you hate it!) and the other slice with honey. Ultra-sweet honey and uber-salty Marmite, an equal presence of sweet and savoury. Although I don’t have a sweet tooth, I do crave food combinations that contain both sweet and savoury in order to satisfy my cravings. For instance, I think red meat just begs for some kind of acidity to cut through it’s intense meaty flavour. Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome the guest star for this meal… fruit!>>>

For Abadan

Dear Mr. Mayor of Abadan, read this and do as I tell you. There is no trace of re-construction in Abadan. I went to visit some of my relatives there for a few days, a city with 40-year-old memories for me. The city whose girls were portrayed so beautifully in Aghassi’s songs, and whose boys spent their evenings standing by the palm trees in those girls’ neighborhoods. And now it is a city without a plan, without beauty, without vivacious boys, and full of walls where bullet wounds have not healed yet. But I have decided to return this city’s beauty to it. This city will have to become my country’s most beautiful, warmest, and most exciting city again>>>

کاسه داغ تر از آش

خواهی نشوی رسوا همرنگ جماعت شو: ما ایرانیان اولین کسانی بودیم که این ضرب المثل را عمل کردیم. این داستان را یک هندی برایم تعریف کرد: بعد از حمله اعراب اولین مهاجران ایرانی به هند رفتند. اول استقبال خوبی دریافت نکردند. یک گروه برای مذاکره پیش هندیان رفتند. گفتند ما با صلح و دوستی آمدهیم. هندیها گفتند تعداد زیاد و تفاوت فرهنگی شما جامعه ما را متزلزل خواهد کرد. رهبر ایرانیان یک قند را در چائی انداخت و گفت ما مثل این قند در جامعه شما حل میشویم. >>>

Voice of Iran

Mohammad Reza Shajarian's voice streams out with such power and purity, embodying centuries of technique yet with such emotional texture as to leave the listener in absolute awe. It’s a voice hard yet clear like crystal, a crystal through which one can see three millennia of Iran’s history and culture, from Zarathustra at the dawn of spiritual man through to Baarbad in the Sassanid court, to Alexander’s sacking of Perspolise, to the invasion of the Arabs, to Rudaki and Avecina, to the Mongol plunder and Hafez’s great existential shrug, to Hasan Sabbah’s stubborn resistance at Alamut, the horse rides in the caucuses and the Shalimar gardens in Kashmir. It’s the voice of endurance in the face of pious repression and invaders’ brutality and regeneration through culture>>>

شرقی دوست داشتنی

او که یک شارلاتانِ متقلبِ کلاهبردارِ دروغگویِ ریاکارِنامردِ نارفیق بیش نیست؟ او که میدانیم تا رویمان را برگردانیم کلاهمان را خواهد برداشت؟ او که میدانیم بازبان چرب ونرمش درپی خالی کردن جیب مان است؟ او که می دانیم به زن وبچه خودش هم رحم نمی کند، تا چه رسد به من وشما؟ راستی چرا؟ قاطبه یک ایرانی تمام عیاراست! >>>

در پس واژه ها...

انسانی با چنین شیفتگی، هر لحظه در آستانه خلق اثری است، تا که گلی صحرایی می شکفد، تا که پرنده ای بال می گشاید، بوی مدهوش کننده یاسی در حیاطی می پیچد-- هر لحظه که چیزی از طبیعت تا او کوچ می کند. و به گمان نگارنده این سرگشتگی، گونه ای از شکیبایی و عشق را می طلبد-- از برای تامل-- که تنها در ضمیربرخی بیداراست. آنچه توجه این افراد را بر می انگیزد و براحساس شاعرانه شان می افزاید، برای دیگران نادیدنی است.>>>

The gentle giant

I still can't believe he's gone, forever. Ahmad Bourghani Farahani died in Tehran on Saturday at the age of 48, from a heart attack. He is best known as a former liberal member of parliament from Tehran and one of the most open-minded deputy culture ministers in charge of media affairs during Mohammad Khatami's first presidential term. I met Ahmad years before his brief political career. He was a senior editor at the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) when I joined the English section in March 1980. I still remember his friendly, playful, welcoming smile the first time we met... >>>

When taboos must be broken

Muhammad was before the prophecy a reliable businessman (Muhammad-al- amin), working for his wealthy wife, Khadijah. As a prophet in Mecca, he was a sage thinker, a quick speaker, who could invite people to believe in the only God “Allah”. He was decent, humble and generous to the poor, with whom he shared his meal. After 10 years of prophecy, he had to leave Mecca and his migration--“Hijrat”-- to Medina in 622 marks his new career. In Medina, as a powerful prophet with personal ambitions, Muhammad did not only used and abused the existing traditional norms of society; he s also violated ethical rules of his own religion to achieve his goals>>>

A National Obsession

The British are greatly influenced by cultures that have filtered into our own culture through centuries of exploration, discovery and colonisation. So it was only a matter of time before I decided to pen a piece that would shine a light on culinary unsung hero of our fair England… Namely, the beautiful and mysterious Eastern treasure that could only be... India... India itself is a cornucopia of culture influenced by different cultures and religions. Even the Persians had a very infamous hand in the history of India and the ‘Parsee’ culture (as it’s now known) is alive and well in India to this very day. The Persians established the ‘Mughal Empire’ which introduced an era of decadence and luxury that was previously little known to India.>>>

Two thousand five hundred years old

The last time I saw Dr. Khanlari was in 1987 when he told me that studying literature belonged to another time. “It is a different world now,” he said. At the time I was a graduate student in literature and his advice to me was to start on a different path while I was still young. Parviz Natel Khanlari was a great man—so great, in fact, that a mere listing of his accomplishments does him no justice. People still argue whether his most important contribution was his journal Sokhan (unparalleled to this day in the talent and rigor it fostered), his country-wide literacy projects (leading to a considerable hike in literacy rates), his role in standardizing and producing text books (the accessibility and quality of which we all took for granted)...>>>

Confessions of a Secret Agent

When I first began "blogging" here (or more accurately, "threading") about two months ago, I had to defend my right to speak, because I was not an Iranian. It was hard, and sometimes painful, to hold my ground. But I knew I had finally arrived when I began to be accused of being a secret agent of various governments and organizations. I was “in”, I was accepted, I was one of the family. I met this victory with an odd mixture of satisfaction, frustration, and occasional despair. Recently these accusations have been popping up left and right, and I mean literally left and right, because I am now apparently both a Hezbolaahi and a Zionist agent

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