My Books

I just went to check the weblog of a friend, Hesam. There it was when I saw his writing about five first books that have had the biggest effect on his life. So I decided to take the chance and see what those books in my life are. Well, honestly I didn't get to a clear result. As a child I was used to read books and hear stories. My biggest childhood amusements were those times when my mother bought me books or children's magazines and read them to me or when my grandmother was staying the night and I planned to sleep beside her and make her retell one of her stories for the hundredth time, so before beginning to read I was deeply affected by these stories which I heard during these times. Those were really great times. Then again my interests after that were mostly in history books where I could find great stories and courageous adventures of real people before us. It wasn't important whether these people were living ten years before I was born or ten thousand years before. They were always fascinating. But again there were other books which some really had great effect in my vision of what life looks like. I tried to list five of them which I could remember but that doesn't necessarily make them the top most important ones.

"Childhood, boyhood and youth". My mother was a big fan of Leo Tolstoy and she used to talk about him and his books a lot but most of his books were banned during the first decade after the revolution. So when I started to read, none of his books were available around. Then when I was ten years old one day my mother brought home this book. And so I had the chance to read a Tolstoy book. Although it is a fiction but it is said that he has taken a lot of things from his own life. But even if this was not true the book was great. As a child to read a serious book told by a child and reading his experiences in the years trough which he grows was magical. I felt really close to the first role of the story. There were many similar things which I saw between him and myself and in those that we weren't similar I sometimes even tried to copy him. So anyway I still can taste the bitter sweetness of this masterpiece.

"Desirée", another great real story. Again a book which my mother bought for herself but instead I finished reading it four times during the first year after it entered our house. I read it through those horrible exam nights in one of my worst and nightmarish years of school. But I really enjoyed it and I fell in love with its characters so deeply that I spent the coming year after that studying the French revolution. I finished reading every book found in Iran about the revolution and Napoleon which of course weren't too much.

"The sound and the fury". I have just read this book a few years ago. I heard about this amazing book from my dear friend, Hamed. I read it a year after that and it blew my mind. It had a very simple story of a family in America but told in a very genuinely and genius way. Other than the book itself it represents me everything I experienced in that year specially with this friend of mine, Hamed which made my eyes open to a new world of literature and music. I saw great movies of the last century, listened to great rock music from early fifties until now and books and poems of American writers which I was almost unfamiliar with.

"Little black fish" a must-read book of any child. Written by a young azeri writer who died in his youth before revolution this book has touched the hearts of many children of my generation in Iran. The book itself was beautiful. Other than the story the book was illustrated by simple powerful images which showed this little black fish who wasn't satisfied by the answers his mother and others told him for his unending questions so he decides to explore the world and see it with his own eyes. This story at the end reveals to be a story told by a grandmother of fishes to her thousand grandchildren, all very small fishes. Among them one can't stop thinking and stays awake all night and the story finishes here. It was a story of life filled with examples of the real life. And the experiences and fears and sacrifices which this small black fish deals with and makes, was very moving for me as a child.

"The boy, the soldier and the sea" I mention this book because it seems to be the first really serious book that I read. I was eight years old and the book was about a french boy which makes a friendship with an enemy soldier during the World War II. It was totally different with what I had read before and it was sort of the beginning of a new era for me

Hopeless!

Today I was chatting with one of my friends in Iran through the internet and at the end both of us ended up very depressed. The subject of conversation changed to the situation of Iran in these days and the members of new cabinet which the new president has selected and the result was nothing but an embarrassment! What a shame to have such a government after what we had before. I still can't imagine how we ended up like this. I don't care about other ministers but culture, state and intelligence ministers are a total shame.

Everything in the human life seems to follow a sinusoidal curve with the usual up and downs and every one of them ends sooner or later and almost every time there is a low point after successful moments and at the end of a dark night there is always a shinny sunny day. But this! It is an absolute minimum in this curve of our life, a minimum which would affect the lives of a lot of us, Iranians.

Khatami, although has made some mistakes and has said a lot of weird things in his last days as a president which we didn't expect to hear from him but at least he had the ability to use his mind and to do what was best for the country. I still believe that we need more time to really know what he did for us. Years must pass! And he is still the most popular figure in the last hundred years of Iranian history. Nobody, not even Mosaddegh has received such popularity during his life time.
Here is another article about the new iranian government.

In the Cut

I think sometimes cutting a photo is as important and essential as taking the picture itself and a careful cut can make a photo more effective. I don't want to relate what I said to this photo but this is what I tool in the garden of museum of Rodin in Paris

Cote d'Ivoire

This friend of mine in the place I work who has a Turkish girlfriend is very curious about all the politics and everything going on in the world. He was the first one who told me about the bombings in London and he has a lot of political information about all over the world. This is what I really like about the French people. They have a vast knowledge about everything; even their ordinary people are like this and they aren't ignorant about other parts of the world. In fact they are the most political people I have ever known.

Anyway he just told me that the black girl I told about in the previous posts who was from Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has suddenly returned to her country without any notice. She was absent for the last few days and we were wondering where she might be. So today she has written a short email telling that she is in Paris waiting for the flight to go back to Abijon without anything further. We wondered what would be the reason and I thought something emergency might have come up, something familial perhaps. Then from what my friend told me it seems that it is both this and it is not. It seems that her father wanted to run for the office and enter the parliament but she thought it was a dangerous thing to do and it is possible that she has returned to try and change her father's mind. In developing countries politics is always a dangerous thing to be involved in.

Soirée

All of us who work together in this small enterprise were invited to general managers's house to have a barbeque dinner with him. I would have loved or even dreamed of such a house. Out of the city, on top of the hill with a great view to the green and yellow colorful wheat harvest on the other hills and small villages on the distance with their old church's tower in the middle, there it was this small cozy house with a rather big garden.

There was a Turkish girl who was the girl friend of one of the French guys in here. He seems to be an interesting guy and I like to get to know him better. The girl's name was Zeinab, originally an Arabic name. So as I'm still not very fluent in French I got the chance to chat a little in Turkish and try to see how much I can speak. It is quite interesting for me that how this country -which I like by the way- looks at us from very distance as though they are a whole superior and other country and it sometimes happen to us too when we talk about neighboring countries. And it all goes back to their studies in school. And also ours and how little they teach us about our neighboring countries and their real culture and traditions and not just what politics of they day requires. It seems that they have known this need in the west much earlier. So to prevent the countries from falling into a situation which will just turn to damage their own lands they have tried to mix their people as much as they could. In France you can see a lot of people from all around Europe or US who have come to take a year of their studies in a country other than their own, to have the opportunity to know another country's culture and to know other people, and at last to come to understand each other and prevent any prejudgment and misunderstanding. And maybe this is all we might need, to put aside our prejudgments and go and live among others and to look at them and to learn from them and teach them and try to find the similarities and common beliefs and make these flourish rather than making distance and looking to others from an unequal point of view.

Apology

I must apologize for the post I wrote yesterday. I hate judging a group of people generally. Despite knowing that it is wrong I accidentally fell into it. Yesterday I categorized a group of people living in north of Tehran but I didn't clear it out that what I meant surely isn't all the people but those which I mentioned mostly can be found in that region and also in upper classes of all major Iranian cities. And their concerns definitely differ with those of the lower and poorer class.

But these days maybe these general things might seem insignificant comparing to what is happening to Ganji and also all the nuclear discussions which seems leading to nowhere and I don't think it has to do anything with the new government. I just hope that people realize what is happening and everything turns to be alright for the country which with looking through the last century's history of Iran it seems very unlikely to happen.

Night Club

There was an article in Guardian which I was reading yesterday and which was about Iran, with the name: "Iran: life in America's gunsight". It was obvious that the writer had honestly tried to give a multi-dimensional view of Iran and to cover all the opposing opinions about different important issues currently under discussion in Iran. I can't really judge if he has succeeded or not but it was indeed interesting and it was really one of the most honest articles about Iran published in a western media. But out of the whole thing I found this piece quite amusing:

'Under the "night clubs" entry in the Lonely Planet guide to Tehran are just two words - "dream on" - but every night in the capital there are hundreds of private parties, up to virtual clubs with DJs, bars and drugs.'

"Dream on"! How true! But it is rather sad that now, the only thing that really matters for young people and teenagers in North Tehran is these "night clubs" and parties which are thrown every night. They don't have any other problem and they don't care about the others'. With the money they have they can even buy freedom if that is what they really worry about. And the rest of the country is doomed to struggle to just try to provide daily vital needs of their families and in many cases even worse!

Sometimes I think with myself and see that maybe the people really didn't have another choice when they elected Ahmadinejad. Maybe they really think he can do something for them, and maybe he really can! For this, we just have to wait and see. The truth is when Khatami was elected with a high percentage of votes, we all thought people wanted change. In fact we were correct but in what the change should be everyone had a different opinion. Some thought more political freedom is necessary and some other said social freedoms are more important. But it turns out that there might have been a great number of people that nobody noticed or tended to ignore that just wanted better conditions in their daily living. Although this also can be handled if there is a real democracy established in Iran with a government that can actually do something and fight the corruption and help reducing the distance and huge gap between different classes of society.

Girls

There is something special with the black girls. I haven't seen any nasty thing from them and every one of them which I have met and I have come to know a little more were kind, intelligent and very understanding and compassionate. Right now, in this place which I work and spend my internship there is a girl who is a first year student doing also her internship, her name is Carole and it seems that she is from Cote d'Ivoire. It maybe just my imagination but she always seems smiling and has a very kind look on her face.

The one I specifically and specially have very good memories of was called Lindi. She was my classmate in 6^th year of elementary school in Canada, in Dalhousie elementary school in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I remember her extreme kindness and compassion for anyone who was around her. She was always smiling and laughing and made everyone around her share this feeling. It requires a great talent to do that. And I also remember her project in Schools science symposium where she got the gold medal and although I had gotten a silver medal myself I was happier for her than myself and I still remember her project's title: upside down… .

Good old memories! It is incredible how human mind tends to forget the bad memories and keep the special selected ones. It gives you a good feeling to look back and see you have lived your life with a lot of good memories to look back to and to enjoy them whenever you need them. And trust me! We sometimes really need them!

Room under the roof

I think now I might have a lot of things to say. I had a very pleasant stay in Paris and enjoyed the company of two of my friends which I knew them from university times in Iran and a new friend which was a really cool guy. The four of us were staying in a room free of charge which I had found and this is itself a whole complete story so may be I would better begin with that. But before: I have added some pictures of my trip to my flickr photos, so take a look if you want.
Two years ago I along with my best friend decided to go to Turkey to take the TOEFL exam. Unfortunately TOEFL is like other American things which are part of American sanctions (since last year they have been taking paper based TOEFL exams in a very limited form in Iran with an agreement with an ETS center in Dubai). This friend of mine is a person that I know since I was an elementary student of 9 years old and since then we have been friends and accepted in the same high school and finally in the same university. But two years ago we knew our paths are becoming more and more distant from each other. So this trip was somehow our last journey together. He is now studying in University of Columbia in New York.
So as our hometown is just an hour from the border of Turkey we decided to pass the border by car to go to the nearest big city and then fly from there to Ankara where we were supposed to take the test and spend a few days in one of my friend's apartment who was studying there.
In Van, the city that we were supposed to take the plane from, when we took the bus going to the Airport we noticed a European old looking man who was asking the help of someone who would both understand English and Turkish, and well, he was lucky! He was about 60 years old or more and he had lost his entire luggage some days before. He was going to retrieve them in the airport and head back to his country. When we further spoke with him in the airport we noticed that he was from France living in Paris and this was a long journey beginning from Armenia, passing through Iran and returning to France. So that was it. We saw him and spoke to him for about 15 minutes and after that in the plane and after landing we didn't see him again although we exchanged email addresses.
So when we came back, there it was in our mailboxes, an email from him inviting us to France. A year after, when I actually came to France he sent us another email asking where we were and what we do and since then we have exchanged several emails but haven't got the opportunity to meet again. This time was no exception since he was going to another country again but he kindly offered us a room in the building where his apartment is and so we had a room under the roof of a nice Parisian building near the Eiffel tower in the center of the city, so what more could we have wanted?
In Iran, we consider ourselves one of the hospitable nations of the world. There are a lot of reasons for that which I'm not sure which one is true and which one is not, but when it comes to real hospitality I haven't heard any Iranian doing the same thing as my friend, Dominique has done for us. Maybe you see this as an exception but frankly, if this is an exception there are a lot of exceptions in France.

Apollo Cheese

Today is the anniversary of the first manned moon landing. So Google has changed its logo and has given its link to the Maps section where they have added some images of the moon surface, the part of it where 5 Apollos landed there. However the interesting thing is if you zoom the image to its maximum level, instead of getting a closer image of the moon, what you will get is a closer image of a yellow swiss cheese. As always the sense of humor of the people working in Google has shown itself in the most unexpected place! The best part is they haven't given a slight hint or explanation anywhere! They are crazy, people down there, and I love crazy people!:))

Writing

Some days writing about something gets really hard. You decide to write but nothing comes to your mind. Then the only thing you can do is to start writing about why you can't write. After three or four lines something will come to mind and also your hand and fingers will warm up to write even more. Some years ago I remember I was reading an interview with Garcia Markez, the famous Colombian writer. I remember him saying that when he wants to start writing a story or something in the beginning of the day he grabs the pen and starts writing whatever is going through his mind on that moment. After a while nothing remains in his mind that he hasn't written about so then he said he could start writing about what he really wants to write. At that time I found this technique extremely interesting. It really works sometimes.
Some times I feel that I got to have a really valuable thing to say in order to come and write here. But you can't expect to be able to always say interesting things. Sometime just talking about everyday experiences is a valuable thing itself.
On the other hand, everyday we experience a lot of things that some of them might not be said or talked about easily. I had written a post some weeks ago in my Persian blog about the human nature and what really makes us human. The actions we do and the things we say or the ones we don't do or say. Or maybe just both?

These Days

Well! I have finished my courses and supposedly I should have more time to write in here, but the truth is it seems that I'm now even more busy and occupied. As part of my studies in here I must complete a six month internship in a company or research lab and it was completely up to me to find somewhere and as usual the main problem remained the same: Nationality. So right now I have found a very small company which is trying to prepare a full proposal which the outline of it has been accepted by European Space Agency. It seems rather an interesting topic but the size of work is very large especially for me who in these previous months have been on my own, mostly in my room doing the projects which I had and managing my time as I like. Now those days are over and I must obey a very strict time table to be able to prepare a proposal in less than two months. Even this weekend, I was quite busy helping one of my friends to move to her new house. So this is the only thing I could write for now but I still remember that I have to translate the post I had written about friendship from Persian to English and also I will probably have plenty of things to write about next weekend after I come back from my three day visit to Paris.

Back to life

Finally my courses are finished and from now on I will do my project in a small company starting this Wednesday. It seems an interesting job. I have to wait and see. I have a lot of plans for the summer but I'm not sure if I'll have a lot of free time to go around and see different places. My new enjoyment is riding my bike along the canal du midi and in the city. It is a really good and new experience for me; Riding with it through town, going to library, to cinema, to any place you want! Now I feel no need for a car. Even if I decide to go to another city I might go by bicycle, surely it is more fun and healthier. In Iran, a third world country rushing to modernize itself, certain things are forgotten because it is getting more and more important to feed the people with a sick economy that even the high price of oil can't help it rather than building backbones for public sport opportunities. When I was in Iran other than some time long ago in my childhood when we were enjoying riding our bikes in front of our houses there hadn't been an opportunity to ride a bike longer than half an our! The streets aren't at all safe for these kinds of things specially with madly driving style of Iranians. And it is even more fun and wildly new experience for girls which haven't felt the wind in their hair while riding a bike in Iran.
But enough of this bicycle rides. It's five in the morning and I have got a bad fever in middle of summer but I hope to have time to write more in the coming days of my delayed writing subjects in here such as Satrapi's Persepolis series and the concept and rules of friendship.

election-finale

What happened? Why this happened?

Did someone do anything wrong? Now that we had a real competition with real campaigns and different ideas how did an ugly man with even uglier thoughts become president? I don't want to write! I don't want to hear the news! I don't want to believe!

But there is still hope. It may not be as bad as it seems, I hope!

Elections

It's unbelievable! It is absolutely surprising and unexpected! I still can't imagine who would vote to Ahmadinezhad! He is getting closer to be in the second position in presidential elections of Iran and he is going to the second round for a run-off with Hashemi. And may be the most amazing thing is that he has got the first place in Tehran and Karaj, the important city near Tehran. This is not happening! It is like a nightmare. He is an extremist and has been a member of the guardians of revolution. A person with military experiences during the war and extremist thoughts about exporting the Islamic revolution to the world! I was expecting to see Hashemi as number one as it happened and Moin and Ghalibaf as number two and three, but this! I still can't believe it. Even Karrubi, the former president of parliament was not expected to get a high vote. But until last night in the first hours he was even number one. The hope for a continuing reform in the coming four years has died for me. We will again take a step back to reconsider our tactics and ways and we will come back. This is a process which eventually will result in a better Iran. Even this election was a good way of practicing democracy with tough campaigns and real competition. This is democracy, to accept the lost and while not on power, reconsidering our ways and in the same time to watch over those who have power and not let them misuse that. After a hundred years from the first revolution of Iran towards democracy we have still a long way to go to practice and practice and getting better in playing with the rules of the game, a game called democracy.