Mahin in the Wind
Mahin Banu had a dark but lustrous imagination, which unlike her static coiffures, ran windswept and untamed. One winter afternoon, as the curly trees and clouds of Tehran blew across the city, Asqar Aqa came home from work for his daily lunch break and siesta and found that something other than the leaves from his…
Part One. The Moftakhar House in Moftakhar Alley
The Moftakhar house snaked itself around Moftakhar Alley with all the wiggling hips of a Wednesday market girl. When they first assigned surnames in Tehran, Asqar Aqa’s father, Ali Aqa, chose the name “Moftakhar” because he had studied Arabic and in Arabic moftakhar meant “proud.” In Persian, it lent itself rather easily to ridicule and…
al-majus 