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August 25, 2005
My Uncle Osman, Part I
Introduction: Needless to say, this is a small tribute to Roald Dahl’s “My Uncle Oswald” series of short stories. Much like the difference between Uncle Oswald and Uncle Osman, I stand at the other end of the spectrum from Roald Dahl as far as talent is concerned. Nonetheless, I hope these prove to be of some entertainment.
My Uncle Osman is old. He lives alone in a small apartment in central Tehran, in a middle class neighborhood. He has no particular source of income other than his retirement money, and he leads a quiet, uneventful, life. Unlike Roald Dahl’s Uncle Oswald, he has no talent for anything in particular, no wits to talk about, and is not known for any particular craft. He knows no foreign languages and has only traveled outside Iran once. He was always known, even since his teen years, for being particularly inactive as far as sexual matters were concerned. He has never married, and I doubt if he has ever lost his virginity. He is the least athletic person I know, although I have to be honest and say that he is rather thin, but that is mainly due to his lack of cooking ability.
Well, I can hear your exclamations. You might think that such an uneventful personality does not make for much of a literary character. You might also be cross at me for wasting your time with this story, which, I admit, sounds pointless. To that I will say: patience dear reader, patience! Adventure is a curious thing, and it tends to stick her (yes, it’s a she, crafty and unpredictable) head in when you least expect it.
You see, being an uninteresting person sometimes does lend itself into being a character for a story. My uncle Osman is a person of no colour, as I mentioned before, but that does not mean he cannot be interesting. Yes, in his own head, he is a hero, one of a thousand talents and many abilities, all of which, sadly, has been oppressed by unknown forces and jealous competitors.
Loneliness and going through life without being of any use to the people and the world around him has made my uncle Osman a “phantom” hero. He can tell you the stories of his adventures, quite remarkable ones, for hours, and believe you me, he has done that many times with me as his audience. He keeps on reminding you how important he could be. He also avoids people because he knows they want his talents and he delights himself by preventing them from having these talents.
Uncle Osman is a retiree of the ministry of agriculture. I should mention that his tenure in the ministry was only ten years and he retired himself out of sheer laziness. This however has never prevented him from claiming to know all branches of the government like the back of his own hand. I remember when I was a kid, he used to tell me of his missions to Europe and Subtropical Africa. I never wondered about why the Iranian Ministry of Agriculture might have any business in Europe or Africa. The stories were interesting, and although my mom used to eye her brother with a blaming look, I never had any doubts about his stories. I always interpreted my mom and dad’s reactions to Osman’s stories to be out of jealousy, the fact that they themselves had never been to Subtropical Africa, facing a whole tribe of cannibals with just a toothbrush at hand.
Well, now I know better, and although I am too ashamed to apologise to my parents, I still think the stories of my uncle Osman are interesting. I will tell you some of them, and to give you a view of the reality, I will also give you my mom’s version of what really happened, just for the record and for seeing how imaginative people can be!
Posted by Khodadad at 01:35 PM | Comments (5)
August 22, 2005
Education
I have made an interesting observation during the last few weeks in Iran. The Iranian youth, generally known for their highly developed political ideas, have been turning directions.
Eight years of hard struggle to find a political free space resulted in almost nothing. What people, particularly the young people, wanted was to have a space to implement political reforms. The idea, despite being noble, was rather immature, expecting political reforms to take root without the participation of the actual political actors.
Now, however, the kids are taking another route. They have turned into self-improvement! They read more, they listen more, they try to learn. I guess the idea that if you improve yourself, you consequently improve the world around you has crept in. I look at this new development positively. We shall see what it amounts to.
Posted by Khodadad at 11:04 AM | Comments (1)
August 14, 2005
I was born...
... 29 years ago from yesterday. 13 August 1976, 9:30 PM, Tehran, Iran. Leo, born in the year of Dragon. Yes, power that is: be afraid, be very very afraid!:P
I have had two nights of celebration so far, and one more to go. It has been fun hanging out with friends. Wish all my friends were here...
By the way, please have a look at my girlfriend's newly revitalised weblog: http://hapootalks.blogspot.com. She writes from the point of view of her dog, which might be interesting for some.
Posted by Khodadad at 02:51 PM | Comments (2)
August 07, 2005
Tabriz
I am back in Tehran, after a nice, five day trip to the north and northwest of Iran. I am glad to be back in a sense, but of course I regret the end of the thrill that travelling brings (although I am still technically travelling!) and I also miss the cool weather in Shomal and in Tabriz.
Well, after my last entry from Shomal, my friend and I continued our journey (with some minor transportational difficulties, including not finding a bus to take us from Rasht to Tabriz!) and arrived in Tabriz on Wednesday.
Tabriz is the capital of the Eastern Azerbaijan province, which should not be mistaken for the Republic of Azerbaijan which is another country altogether (and was not even called Azerbaijan until a good 80 years ago, rather "Arran").
Tabriz is an interesting and beautiful city. It is much less crowded than Tehran, and despite having lost many of its historical buildings due to several earthquakes and attacks by Ottoman troops, its people have managed to safe-keep the remaining buildings and restore them well. Among these buildings is the Blue Mosque, a brilliant 15th century mosque made at the time when Tabriz was the capital of the Aq Qoyunlu Kingdom. It apparently was built on top of an earlier structure, since archaeological excavations have unearthed some structures below the surface of the mosque, including a pre-historic burial, contents of which have been moved to a museum.
Tabriz also has an interesting and very large bazaar, very similar in structure to the one in Tehran with which I am very familiar. It has as well been seriously damaged in an earthquake, but has been restored very well. Generally, Tabrizis seem to be proud of their city and quite keen on preserving it, unlike Tehran whose inhabitants seem to be hellbent on trashing their city and stripping it off of its most beautiful sites, much to the dismay of those of us who can remember when Tehran was beautiful. The fact is, the population of the metropolis that is Tehran is now largely non-Tehrani (I would guess about 1-2 per-cent of the current population of Tehran are actually from this city), and so they do not care about its preservations, since they do not know it as their home and do not hold any memories of it. Alas, this is the fact, and my babbling about it does not solve anything either. I just wish I was not a Tehrani and I could feel that I belong to Shiraz (my favourite city in Iran).
Outside Tabriz, we went to a little village called Kandovan (about 50 km to the southwest of the city). This village is amazing, simple as that! Like Capadocia in Turkey, the village, located at the side of a series of low-mountains, consists of pyramid shaped earth-and-stone structures that have sprung-up from the ground due to various geological activities. Basically, these things came out of the earth filled with various earth gasses which were released upon coming-up and left large holes inside the pyramids. Then, the local people made the holes larger and built their homes inside these pyramids! It is in a sense unbelievable and a bit surreal. People live in these things so naturally, as if nothing is unusual. They have also stayed much more authentic and have not become commercialised like the Masuleh people, which was rather refreshing.
All in all, I enjoyed my time in Tabriz and I wish I had more time to explore the historic sites in Azerbaijan, particularly the Sasanian site of Takht-e Suleiman. Then again, whenever I come to Iran for a visit, I wish I had more time to do things. This is a vast country, and seeing it takes a long time, and since much of the tourist infrastructure is not built-up enough, it is even harder to see it in a short time. Anyway, I should be thankful; during the past four years, I have managed to see a good half of the country. I am going to see the whole thing eventually, slowly, but surely (eh, the damn cliche; there's no avoiding it, is it?).
Posted by Khodadad at 02:20 PM | Comments (1)
August 02, 2005
Shomal
In Persian, the word for the "north" is shomal. It can naturally refer to the general direction of geographical north, and it indeed does. However, in colloquial Persian, particularly Tehrani Persian, the word also commonly refers to the two provinces that are located by the Caspian Sea (them being to the north of almost all of Iran, especially Tehran).
These two provinces are squeezed between the huge Alborz mountain-range and the Caspian Sea. They have a temperate climate which is usually ca. 5-10 degrees celssius cooler than Tehran and considerably more humid than it as well. It has for long been the most popular stretch of holiday land for the Tehranis and other Iranians. The people are easy-going, the scenery is beyond beautiful (I will pust some pictures up later) and there are many opportunities to relax, and to top it all off, the food (particularly sea-food and local specialities) are magnificent.
So, with all these said, I mean to imply that I am writing these things from Shomal, from the province of Gilan to be exact. The weather is cool and sticky (!) and we (me and a Dutch friend of mine) have spent the night in a little hotel in the Village of Masuleh, and generally, life is good. Masuleh was beautiful and dreamy, with haunting, fog covered, green mountains and houses that are built one above another, making each house's roof the front yard of the one above!
We will be off to Tabriz, the centre of the province of Eastern Azerbaijan, tomorrow. I have never been there and I am very excited about seeing this very famous and apparently interesting city. I will update from there as well.
Posted by Khodadad at 04:03 AM | Comments (1)