Notes on At Mohtaram Khanum’s
Families rise and fall, and pridefulness and humility wax and wane, two moons dancing around the same hearth. If I could draw how I see late-modern Iranian society (and I admit, my view from here is limited), it would be as a pyramid of piled-up noses all looking down on one another. The Bakhtiari branch…
Dāstāngo
I sometimes feel despondent when I think about Al and how obsolete it is making writing as a profession – a craft which many of us have spent decades and fortunes honing (a privilege in itself, I know). It’s painfully obvious returning to social media after just a short hiatus that Al is everywhere -…
At Mohtaram Khanum’s
Mahin Banu’s Baby. Written in four vignettes, No. 2. Mohtaram Khanum lived in Shahbdolazim, in the ancient city of Rey. Home to the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim, Rey was reconnected to Tehran under Nasser ed-Din Shah Qajar by the Tehran-Rey railway – known affectionately by locals as the machine dudi, the “smoke machine” – and…
al-majus 