The Tale

The Tale AmirHossein Jafari

Chapter I - Home It has been years since I came out from that old historic house that I used to live in. When I think about it, I miss the house Home is the beginning. The beginning, to me, is where you open your eyes and see the morning light. My beginning was always my room, on the floor, where the window above faced the garden. The beginning is when you open your eyes and see that light passes through the colorful stained windows of your room and merges into the color of the carpet and colorful ornaments. Every morning, I woke up with colors. My room changed at different ages.

It seemed like my room was alive and knew my needs. It changed itself based on my needs, the time, and my age. My understanding of the room was different too. When I was a little kid, the room was small. As I grew older, it grew bigger and older with me.

I remember the decorations of my room pulled me through my surreal world. I would play with the painting and decorations. I extracted different shapes such as grass, sheep, and other creatures and played with them. I remember Mr. Ghooli, the kind monster shape; he was among my best friends. He helped me with my homework, played with me, and even cheered me up when I was sad. I remember he even sang a song or lullaby when I wanted to sleep.

When I grew older, other aspects of the room changed. It allowed space for my books, my desks, and my library. It felt like my room silenced everything to provide a suitable space for me to go deep into my books. Even Mr. Ghooli was helpful on some occasions. I remember he helped me with a geometrical drawing exercise.

Coming out of my room, there was a corridor that connected all the rooms together, narrow and dark. Stairs connected the roof to the garden and landed on the iwan. My room was on the middle floor. Truth to be told, the stairs were annoying. They were small and spiral, with high steps. My grandparents rarely came up and down the stairs because it was bad for their knees. Iwans are mysterious. Ours was a pre-entrance and part of the interior as well as part of the exterior.

To me, the iwan was the connection between the living room and the garden.

I spent long hours staring at the sky framed between wind catchers, thinking and talking to myself.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I want to see what’s in faraway places. Or maybe be an artist. Yeah! I’d like to be an artist! Maybe a painter or a photographer or even an actress!”

“Where do you want to visit first?”

“A bigger city!”

“Why?” “They’re big—endless—people are everywhere, all the time. It’s not like here, where everyone goes to sleep at 10 pm.

Honestly, at some points, it’s boring! I think in Tehran there are lots of exciting things going on and nicer places to visit. So I want to move to Tehran and became an artist!”

“What you will visit first?”

“Azadi monument! In books, I saw that it’s super big! Even bigger than the biggest mosque in Yazd!”

And it came true! Years later it was at this iwan again that I made my decision to move to discover faraway places. It was a coincidence of life that the newspaper had an opening position in Tehran. At this iwan, I decided to apply. It was at this iwan that I got a phone call that I was approved for the Tehran position, and it was at this iwan that I decided I would move.

I knew that it was not easy to move and start from the beginning—to move to a place where I wouldn’t know anyone— where I wouldn’t have relatives.

There would not be big houses with spacious living rooms and all the furniture, carpets, and curtains; in my home, all these had been handcrafted by an artist that devoted time to make such intricate pieces. In fact, the iwan was a collection of art.

Now I have to find art in museums. The moment I decided to move, I sat on the handcrafted sofa and again thought to myself:

“So you’ve decided to go?”

“Yeah! I will.”

“You know that won’t be easy right?”

“Yeah! I know.”

“There will be no harmonious khaki-cream colored buildings. There will not be moments that you get on the roof and watch the wide horizon that connects the roofs to the sky with smooth lines of domes and roofs. There, the horizon is blocked and most buildings are gray, concrete boxes!”

“Yeah I know!”

“You are still ambitious to move?”

“Yeah! I don’t think everything will be ugly in this new place. There are millions of people living there; there will be a lot of things going on to discover. I know that there is no wind catcher or other specific elements, but I have to experience it! All in all, there is more space to grow in Tehran. I think I’m done here; at some point, this city gets boring, small, and I can’t do much.”

“I see! Aren’t you stressed about leaving your comfort?”

“Of course I am! I’m stressed and at the same time excited to go somewhere new, visit new places and meet new people. I’m stressed that the new place might not be safe. In this house there are so many rooms that I don’t know what to do with them, whereas in the new place there will be just enough space to fit your body, not even the soul! But I’m eager to go experience and discover what is called a ‘modern city.’”

“How about leaving the house that shaped your character?”

“I’m sad about it, and I hope I can find a place where I can fit in and be comfortable with my soul. I hope I can adapt my identity to the new environment and develop it! I hope the place I move to will be the same as my dreams, and those dreams won’t turn into a nightmare!”

“I don’t know; I will go to Tehran. But I think some part of my childhood will remain.”

In the end, I moved to Tehran. I moved from a spacious house and a beautiful garden, and I didn’t think I would see a lot of those kinds of houses in Tehran.

I moved from a traditional place to a “modern” world.

I think “modernity” is not just dark, gloomy, and sad. I think it is at some points, but on the other hand, there is more to see and more to experience, such as places, events, celebrations, etc. I think there are nicer things about “modernity” as well. There are even nicer buildings, and above all, there are wonderful opportunities for photography.

End of Chapter I

Chapter I - Home

Chapter II – Neighborhood It has been years since I came out from that old historic house that I used to live in. When I think about it, I miss the house even more. It was the best of times. I’m glad I grew up traditionally in a traditional place. That is why I decided to write a diary: to write about the home after five years of moving out of my hometown—to write about moments that I left behind because I thought I could have a better life and opportunity without them—to write about moments that shaped my identity. Moments that made me, “me.”

“Home”—to me it is the beginning of life. It is the place where existence is shaped—the place where I created my dreams and my refuge for escaping from the tediousness of the daily life of the outside world. Home is not only a place for the body; it is a place for building up the soul and character. Each person’s soul has only one “home.” The real home of someone is the home of their soul, regardless of whether they were there for a short time or for many years—even though the house might be left empty for ages. Even if the person passes away, the soul still wanders in his/her “home.” It can be a small, cozy apartment downtown, or it can be an estate far from the intensity and tensions of a big city.

My “home,” Lari House in the Fahadan neighborhood, is the place my spirit is still wandering. The neighborhood is old. It was old then, and it will always remain old. Maybe it was there before today’s big cities were born. In houses made out of brick and clay, everything smells old, especially in the rain, when water seeps into the earth and the smell of dust fills the air. I could smell the centuries.

Sometimes I would just walk through a place, finding somewhere to sit. I would sit and procrastinate, maybe drink tea or eat something. It felt like the atmosphere had paused in time. That’s what I love about an old neighborhood or city the most.

I loved the path that I would walk down from high school to home. I loved the way I walked from work to home, even though I remember that it was a long way, but it was always sweet. Narrow and covered alleyways were my favorite because they were like a maze—playful; every direction gave me a different view. The path was so narrow I could stretch both hands out and touch the walls. In that moment, I was able to connect myself to history, by touching the coarse and sometimes cracked walls, I could feel centuries of history, and I imagined the little girls that passed down the walls at different ages. I imagined their feelings, what they wore. I felt connected to the history of those little girls that passed from those walls. I remember a lot that was created by the space and what I experienced there, which was specific to Yazd. I don’t have them here.

I remember once I was walking back from the newspaper office I was working at. I saw people in one neighborhood; they brought out their food and were eating together. I joined them so I could get to know some people in another neighborhood. I was captivated by their kindness, amongst themselves and with strangers. At every event and every ceremony, people engaged in the community with closeness like they were all one family. At that time, I loved going out and socializing with people. I still remember the fruity smell of the foods: plum stew with saffron and pomegranate paste with shredded walnuts. The smells spread out through the entire Fahadan neighborhood, to invite, attract, or show the way to other people who were wandering around.

Another day, I was walking on a different path. In one of the alleyways, I saw a girl dancing in her own world. At that moment, I saw myself, my child inside. Like Fitzgerald said: ”I was within and without.” I thought to myself, How nice to be a little girl here. In these narrow paths you can live your dreams. Without interrupting her dream, I photographed her in order to always remember her moment and the similar moment that I had.

I remember when I was a high school girl, maybe 16 or 17 years old. I was walking back from school with friends. We decided to go to Ziya’iye school, also known as Alexander’s prison, to visit. The central garden was big, and the dome was high for a high school girl, and I liked to stand beneath it. In the center of that old high dome, I would stare at the highest point and feel like the dome was stretching to the sky. We played there. I can remember we played hide and seek, and after we were tired, we did some homework together till sunset. That was my favorite place when I was a kid because it was close to home and we could be loud girls and play freely. All of the buildings were old but more alive than many of the new buildings. It has been a long year since I moved to Tehran. Unlike Yazd, everything here is new. I miss my soul, which I left in that time and place, in Yazd. Even after all these years and moving to different places, my soul is still in my hometown. Whenever I walk on these wide streets, I feel that my soul wanders in those covered alleyways that provided shade. My soul is still walking in the old neighborhood, running and playing on the long paths. When I think about the times I was in Yazd, I notice how in our neighborhood, cars were separated from houses.

That room—that house—that neighborhood was the place where humanity was our tradition; the paths were narrow, but our minds were open. There were tall walls between us, but our hearts were connected. Now, after a year in Tehran, I think of how the neighborhood shaped me.

End of Chapter II

Chapter 2 - Neighborhood

Chapter III

I decided to go to Tehran.at last! Because I wanted to make an improvement. I didn’t want to be invariant. I didn’t want to do the same job over and over. On the one hand, I loved Yazd; It is my being and my identity. On the other hand, I felt that if I stayed too long, everything would become repetitive. There was not much going on, and I felt bored in repetition.

I hated being trapped in repetition. I like to grow. I felt Yazd was limited, though everything was well. It’s a good place to work and to live, but I wanted to grow. I wanted to discover—discover a better life of better quality. I wanted to move somewhere that always had things to discover. So after few years of thinking, I decided to move to Tehran—a bigger place that doesn’t get repetitive and is usually awake. Tehran doesn’t have the limitation of Yazd, so I am able to develop my skills and abilities. I can learn more in Tehran rather than Yazd. I can go forward and grow in Tehran as much as I want. That’s why I decided to come out of my comfort zone. I decided to discover the world. I decided to leave connections and belongings behind. I decided to leave “home.”

When I decided to move, I new this decision would hard. When I was walking in the garden and starring at the sky and deeply thinking I knew that if I move, I will miss this, missing to be in the garden that is secure and I can be free there. I knew I might not be able to see something like this anymore. I won’t see these rough clay walls. In Tehran, all ways/path are straight and direct, and these are no place for meandering. The whole way could be defined as home – Subway – work, and back. There is no space for me the think clearly on the way. I don’t have a moment to myself on the way back.

There is no moment to slowly, winding and meandering in alleyways and imagine. Because technically there are no alleyways. At most I can go few streets up or down which does there is nothing special to discover. Of course, I might get lost though. Whereas In Yazd, the path was so confusing but getting lost was meaningless.

Tehran has nice buildings to visit they mostly are inhumane and out of human scale. Buildings are so big, and streets are so wide that makes me feel that it’s too much and I feel stressed when I want to pass from one side to the other side of the street, but I choose to come because of better opportunities and better life qualities.

Ekbatan, the first place I moved, it’s beautiful but at the same time gigantic, enormous and inhumane. All Ekbatan’s buildings are built of concrete. They are nice, but they are ard to be felt. I’m far from them though when I get close. Feeling them is hard for me. I touch the concrete wall and still don’t feel anything. The market in the middle is nice, but I feel there is something is missed and I don’t know what it is. Maybe because it’s dark or its style is different than Yazd Bazar. Azadi Tower, it’s close by, It’s beautiful, it’s colossal, and it has modern and old identities of Iran its inside. It’s greater than me!

Greater than I thought before. Special me that I don’t use to this kind of great architecture.

So, I moved to Tehran. At last! I decided to go for a better opportunity, better life quality, bigger city, more things to discover. Yazd is a place where time is stopped, and Tehran is a place to move forward. The first place I lived was Ekbatan residential complex. In Tehran, Ekbatan is a “modern” place. It was the first time I engaged with the word “modern.” People understand “modern” as nice or new, or even new-nice. To me, they all might be true, but I feel more than being nice or new, “modern” means simple. In order to be new or nice in this century, you have to get rid of all elements that are representative of tradition, history, culture, and language, and then simplify everything to the most basic and fundamental elements. To be able to build high, you have to be simple. You can not have 20 floors high and have muqarnas. This is the first difference I noticed between Fahadan and Ekbatan.

Another big, important thing I learned was the word “metropolitan.” It’s what some intellectuals call huge cities, when they want to pretentiously describe it. I find some people are proud of this city. I don’t know what they are proud of. Are they proud that they lost their history and culture to modernity and replaced old and beautiful architecture that recorded a significant history with concrete boxes? I understand this so-called “metropolitan” as so big the border of the city fades.

It’s hard to see the end of the city from a roof. There is no beginning, and there is no end. There are millions of people, and you can find everything everywhere. There is so much to see, and yet, nothing can be watched. A lot of things to touch yet nothing to experience. It feels like everyone is alone together.

This place, Ekbatan, is “more” in every aspect of the word in comparison to Fahadan. In my hometown, everything can be understood within certain measurements and scales. Space can be perceived, and it can be framed. It feels like someone leads you through sequences of space and guides you where you want to go and what you want to look at. But in Tehran, nothing can be framed, and no one knows what they are to looking for. It feels like the whole structure is scattered— lots of things are going on, a lot of news is happening, and a lot of events are being held, though none of them sound important or matter to me. Though I’m working on news agendas and photography, all of them feel redundant.

This very first place that I moved—to me it’s not actually a neighborhood—is a place shaped by constructing massive modern buildings, unlike Fahadan, which builds out of clay, brick, and humanity. Here in Ekbatan, buildings are made out of concrete, glass, and machinery. People here rely on cars if they want to go somewhere in the city, and Ekbatan is almost independent from the rest of Tehran. It’s strange to me that there are people who sometimes stay here weeks without going to visit the city—not going anywhere, not visiting anywhere, and not discovering anything. Buildings look close but are too far and won’t be touched. They are visible but not perceived, and of course, those building only have rough surface of concrete.

I remember the first impression I had of Ekbatan was that it felt like I was entering a military base because it had a guard.

It had been implemented since the 1970s, and they never got rid of it. Next, I thought the view was blocked by trees and tall buildings, although the streets were wide. Yazd streets are narrow and its walls are short.

It is not all a grey and gloomy life. It has its own beauty. There is a lot to discover and opportunities to grasp, and this is why I moved here. So I see those things in Ekbatan as well. Ekbatan has significant landscape and full of green spaces and parks that they provide nice shade and atmosphere. Landscape do a nice job to forgetting this inhumane scale and they attract the attention from these ‘modern’ monsters to nature. Sometimes I spend time, lying down under tree’s shade, think and procrastinate. Watching children playing, is one the moments that I can going out of this ‘modernity’ and felt connected to home. In Yazd, buildings have been merged throughout history so that the neighborhoods are mixed. But here, historic layers are distinguishable. For example, building blocks were constructed between 1970-1980, parks were built in the 1990s, and some other facilities and infrastructure were built in the 2000s up to until now. In fact, all of these elements together shape their special “experience” within their short history.

End of Chapter III

Chapter 3

Chapter IV

After several months, I used to the new place—I adapted myself by running away from this modernity and create my own imagination as escape point. I learned to have a good spatial experience and framed sequences in Yazd. I brought all those experiences from Fahadan to Ekbatan, to a place that there no similarities. Every single detail is different. Every single person is different. But I learned to make connections between the new place and old place. I created a world of my own imagination and to fold Fahadan and ekbatan together to create a new world that has both sides beauties. A place for me, that is just me and myself, free from all binding. A world that helps me become ‘the free girl’. I merged the spatial sequences and moments of Yazd to ‘descale’ this modernity. To create a world for myself and I can be meandering as a used to and at the same time makes these monsters more perceivable and makes the landscape more pleasurable. A place that I can run away and forget the pressure of the place. Through this imagination I created an elevated park on top of the market, a place I’m also closer to sky. I can challenge the ‘modernity’ and break it down by having my created momentum through space that brings harmony. In addition my imagination- my world adds another layer to Ekbatan, to help it to creates its experience. Another layer to its identity. Through this layer, I don’t just imagine that I meander in Fahadan but rather I re-imagine my experience of Fahadan to create my own world.

Through this imagination that I made for myself, I created a place where I can forget the pressure of the city, the tiredness of the day, and the long distance from home to work. There are only people walking or biking, the same as Fahadan.

That walkway with its wooden floor and green parts with benches is where I sometimes sit on the way back from work, sit there and procrastinate. It smoothed out since moving. I found friends. The public park with tall trees that has been here since 1970 and is connected to the elevated walkway with short plants and smaller trees. Between the block I live on and the building in front is Ekbatan Market. That space is the closest to “home,” but it still reminds me of how they are completely different. The courtyard back home was private, and here it is public. “Publicity” and not having private space in open air was another thing I learned in living in this kind of apartments.

I learned that anything that is not covered—by covered, I mean the bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom—is public. I am only free from wall to wall and nothing more. Other places are shared. Some are shared specifically with others on their floor; some are shared with all of the building’s inhabitants. Some others are shared with everyone.

In other words, I can’t be myself outside in the way that I was at home. I can’t be free without my scarf, and I have to wear my outside clothes. This is a challenge to not have outside privacy. I can’t be outside in the park the same way I am in my dreams. The first public place I visited when I moved here was a green space courtyard, and I wasn’t comfortable.

But, as the time passed, I got used to it, and I still don’t wear my scarf in my world while I am in the park, deeply dreaming.

There is one thing that is weirdly annoying. It is that this “modernity” eradicates some important elements. This is the same point I was making when I said that simplicity is modernity. It eradicates things that are what tradition called “elements of beauty,” such as ornaments and paintings. It simplifies everything to the simplest things: wall, ceiling, roof, floor. That’s it!

There is no iwan where I can sit and stare at the sky, think, and make important decisions. There is no courtyard where I can be free without being interrupted by a stranger. Both the walkway and the garden are crowded. Sometimes I go there during the middle of the night to be free and without my scarf. No one is there, in my imagination, it’s just me and myself a solo soul rewinding through paths that I created myself. It’s nice that I walk into my own imagination. In fact this enables me to not to see the brutality of modernism and to find beauty and harmony in my the world I created for myself.

There is one thing that is weirdly annoying. It is that this “modernity” eradicates some important elements.

This is the same point I was making when I said that simplicity is modernity. It eradicates things that are what tradition called “elements of beauty,” such as ornaments and paintings. It simplifies everything to the simplest things: wall, ceiling, roof, floor. That’s it! There is no iwan where I can sit and stare at the sky, think, and make important decisions. There is no courtyard where I can be free without being interrupted by a stranger. Both the walkway and the garden are crowded. Sometimes I go there during the middle of the night to be free and without my scarf. No one is there, in my imagination, it’s just me and myself a solo soul rewinding through paths that I created myself. It’s nice that I walk into my own imagination. In fact this enables me to not to see the brutality of modernism and to find beauty and harmony in my the world I created for myself. There are not muqarnas that drag me into my dreams and no wind cacther to listen to while I am on the roof, or to get cool by their natural breeze in the hot summer day whereas there is a dream.

“Oh look! Such an easy life, better life, better quality.”

“It’s beautiful, it’s attractive—I have never seen something like this.”

“I feel like I am being pushed through time or moving to a different world. I’m glad I’m here.”

End of Chapter IV

Chapter V

t feels like everything in life begins from where it ends, and it ends from where it begins. Day and night merge at one point: “home.” When I moved into this new place, I realized how home was important. I realized how much my hometown was home—its bigness, its garden, and its other elements were important to shape my world. When I moved in, I was both happy and shocked. I was happy because I moved to a new place. It was modern, it was nice, and I rented underrate.

It was a good start for a new life. A new place is always exciting, and it was especially exciting because it was my first place in Tehran, and the first place I rented myself and lived independently in. New city, new neighborhood, new place.

In this so called “modern” place I live, the first beautiful thing I loved was that my apartment was on the 8th floor. I had never been higher than the 3rd floor in Yazd. I liked that I was higher. I loved the times I sat on the sofa in my living room and looked outside around sunset when the sky got pink and the lights were turning on. I could see millions of lights that spilled into the darkness, and I could see my reflection I really love the living room. I can sit on the couch at night and watch the endless lights from the window. The view from the window is not directed to frame a specific view or place, so watching this endlessness was quite interesting at first.

From the living room window. In the window, in the foreground of the city. I drank a cup of tea and looked outside. By the way, in Tehran, windows are wider. Unlike Yazd, they open to the streets and not to the courtyard. Those moments were the best for thinking deeply, like the times I would sit in the iwan!, I can throw myself to the other side of the city; I can go wherever I want to go and do whatever I want to do freely. It’s what I love the most about the apartment. After all, this “modernism” was simple, though it has a lot of complicated things to discover.

The most annoying thing that makes me feel bad is there is no open private space to be free for any of the apartment— no open air where I can take off my scarf and go out and get my hairs dance in the wind. They call it the “new way of being beautiful.” Of course, they wouldn’t pay an artist to engrave their buildings. Industrial art has its own beauty, which I agree has a lot to say of course! But it’s not as mesmerizing as handcrafted arts such as muqarnas. I feel those traditional arts are made for drowning the person in themselves. It feels like they are meant to make the person dreamy and push the person into his/her dreams. They are meant to insufflate beauty and love into the human soul. Industrial construction is bewitchingly beautiful, so I am seduced, but they have become repetitive and boring after few months. I am used to them, and they don’t catch my eye at all anymore.

However, muqarnas, with their complicated geometries, were always new to me. I thought a lot, and I got to a conclusion. These muqarnas are rooted so deep in my soul because I grew up in a traditional city and I developed such a strong connection that I feel they are some part of me, as well as being part of my history and culture. Each part of each muqarnas is built with different techniques, and because they are built manually, not every surface’s thickness and roughness are the same. This is why they always feel new, and their qualities are still different. Whereas in this new industry, every beauty is the same, feels the same, and is the same. All the doors are the same; they just open and close. They don’t play with the quality, and they don’t have artwork. All the windows are the same; they are just openings to outside to bring daylight in. They don’t play with light, they don’t make space colorful, they don’t frame the view to the outside, and in fact, in Tehran, there is not much of a specific thing to be framed anyway. Though I love watching the city at night.

At the beginning everything was exciting. Day after day, I got more used to the modernism, and after that, all those things that I was occupied by lost their attraction and fell apart.

After several months, things changed.

“Do you remember that every single thing was attractive and nice, but the moment you got used to it, its beauty shattered and fell apart, and the tragic part of it is that nothing looks beautiful for you and you don’t feel peace and harmony. You feel there is something wrong, and something is missed.”

“I should change something; if there is something wrong, I have to fix it. If something is being missed, I have to fill it. I have lived in my dreams since this life got boring for me. I can’t live forever in my dreams.

I have to bring the muqarnas in my dreams to the real world. I have to build my own world, step by step, rather than just thinking about what I left behind. I have to overlap dream and reality.”

“I have to imagine again! Imagine a better place that I can be. I can be myself.”

What building block misses the most is that public places for habitats like get there socialize and they need it to not to feel cramped in each other. To feel better. Even for me. A big space that feels like an open space. I need to walk through my imagination and build some part of the building. That I could walk there alone, through the world, I created for myself by my imagination. To imagine that I walk there at midnight, alone, without a scarf and free. It would be nice that to imagine this space not just out of concrete but also made out of nature!

“I have to build again.”

End of the Story

The End