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March 17, 2005
Nourooz Pirouz
Happy New Iranian Year to everyone!
Spring Equinox, the beginning of the Spring, is also the beginning of the Iranian New Year (this year, 20th of March, beginning of 1384 HS/1374 Yazdgerdi). It is an old celebration that probably has some relation to farming feasts of the ancient world.
Nourooz is preceded with a fireworks (and fire-jumping) night called "Chaharshanbe Soori". It happens on the evening before the last Wednesday of the year. People make little fires and jump over them, hoping for health in the coming year. They also go for other traditions, one of them (Qashoq Zani) is very much like "trick-or-treating".
Nourooz itself, the moment of Equinox, is celebrated by families around a table adorned with seven items starting with "S" in Persian. It also includes gold fish, a mirror, and other decorative items. After the start of the year, everyone hugs and kisses and people exchange gifts, and then we embark on a meal of herb-rice and fried White Fish! It is a feast to be seen, not to be described!
the 12 days of Nourooz are reserved for visiting the family and friends and stuffing yourself with fruits and dried nuts and receiving Eidi (cash presents from the elders to the younger ones).
The 13th day, the Sizdeh Bedar, is a "national picnic" day when everyone leaves the town to celebrate a day out in the nature (and in my opinion, the best part of the whole feast, after Chaharshanbe Soori). I would imagine it is also the National Happy Burglers day!:)
During the past 25 years, the Islamic Republic, with its extreme Arabicisation and Islamicisation agenda, has tried again and again, and fortunately failed again and again, to stop people from celebrating this national holiday. Their supposed reason is that the celebrations is pegan or has something to do with Zoroastrianism, both of them being wrong claims. Nourooz is an irreligious celebration with its roots in the farming culture of Iran and Mesopotamia and has never had religious connexions. It is also so embedded in the culture of the people of West Asia (from Iran to Azerbaijan and Turkey in the west to Tajikistan and Chinese Turkestan in the east) that it can never be taken out or supressed, least of all by religious fanatics!
Happy New Year! Norouzetan Pirouz, Harroozetan Nourooz!
Posted by Khodadad at March 17, 2005 08:54 PM
Comments
Happy Nourooz Khodadad! :)
I wish that I could see the feast of herb-rice and white fish. It sounds delicious!
I am glad that the Islamic Republic has failed to destroy the Nourooz traditions. May this celebration continue to be enjoyed long after the IRI is but a distant memory!
Posted by: David at March 18, 2005 09:52 PM
Khodadad jan, great post.
Saale No Mobaarak / Happy New Year.
Posted by: Ehsan at March 19, 2005 01:46 AM