The Capital of Culture and Poetry

Iran has many great cities but one that you wouldn’t want to miss at all, is Shiraz. Yes I am originally from this city and Shiraz is my home town but I didn’t grow up here so I got to explore it like a stranger.

In some movies there's this little girl happy in her place and school with her friends, playing around and not knowing how life is gonna mess her up. That was me before we moved to Shiraz, not all like that but I didn't wanna go! I was 7 when my parents finished their studies in Europa, - in details, Great Britain, England, Yorkshire, Leeds- and we headed back to Iran -lived in Ahvaz, Khozestan Province-, So I had my experience with leaving all the things, places and friends I liked behind and go somewhere new and I DID NOT WANT THAT TO BE REPEATED! but what choice does a teenager have??

So at first I didn't like this place, but as time passed and that grey cloud disappeared I listened to this old quote which I'm not sure who've said it : "If You want to know a city go by foot". and so I did. who'tarted walking. I stared to see and wonder and know, touch and feel, learn the accent, eat the food. and what you read in the following is my point of view from the city I was born in but not raised by.

Shiraz is famously known for its hospitality.People would ask to be your host, invite you over for a meal. If you’re lost they will go with you to make sure you've found your address, Say hello to you whenever you pass by and Smile, especially if you’re not local. They adore guests. So feel free to tell them I’m new to the City and watch how they do the rest.

There’s a museum, called Zinat-ol Molk where we could travel back in time within it. Wax Statues of Fars’s famous men and women, anyone who has done anything for the glory of Fras. You see, as far as I know –and I’ve studies history by the way- Archeologists have found small villages that go back to 5000 years ago in Fars province. Fars was also the main land that two great empires during the ancient times, started their kingdom from. One we have heard mostly about is the Achaemenian Empire (550-330 BC.), and the other is The Sassanid Dynasty (224-651 AC.). During the Middle Ages Shiraz was the capital of all Iran in some specific times, there for many artists, poets, scientists, architectures, literatures and etc. came to the Capital and became immortal in history. If you look up world’s greatest poets you will find that 5 of them are Persian, and 2 of these 5, are originally from Shiraz. Saadi the god of romantic poetry who was so famous in his time that even boatmen in China would sing his poets, and Hafez who's poems can’t be carved out of Irania n's life and still be called Iranian. On so many gathering occasions they start reading his poems for one another and talk about them maybe for hours. He has made the language so rich that one might say a few word but what they mean would be much more than just that. This part of the culture cannot be translated. You have to feel the spirit. Just take a look at the pictures of our Now-Rooz festival –the first day of Spring, where our new year starts- and see how many people leave their houses just to spend that moment with Hafez.

When you’re facing the harshness of work and being hurt by the sharp edges of life and future’s anxiety, what could save you better than a nice shady tree, a cool breeze, a refreshing air of a garden, herbal sweet drinks and a book with a friend? This is what I’ve found out about Shiraz’s Spirit. People are so easy going about every thing, as much as they work to get a life they go outdoors too, pick nicks in parks and even short trips, rest, refresh and relax. No surprise this city has invented the world’s most famous red wine – which still goes by the name if Shiraz- Not only the land was bestowing great grapes but also the people added their romantic-poetical soul to it for the tipsiness and mystery.

This City's narration and spirit does meat the Title it has been given. So Why not The Capital Of Culture And Poerty?

#Blessed

Being a Tour Guide is a privilege I guess. More of a blessing in some kind of way, depending on what kind of a person you are. For me, I never looked at it as a Goal to reach at some point, nor a destination I was going to fulfill. But somehow, it was like all roads leading to Rome and the moment I gave my heart into it, I started to count the blessings it was bestowing upon my way.

People who’re in LOVE with books and unify with it will understand. As you, the writer and the story become one, or as if you’ve divided yourself into so many characters, each living differently, feeling different, experiencing different things but still they are all you. The job exposed itself into my face, so cruelly that I kick backed it at first. Just like a book you hate the first 50 pages but then it gets so interesting you can’t put in down, you can’t get enough and at the same time you’re so eager to know what will happen next or how the hero/es will end up, you don’t want it to finish, It became interesting. It became beautiful. There was much more to it than what I was seeing. It was that same feeling, same joy, same passion, with reading a new book. With Each tour came a story. Different people, different contraries, continents, Languages, Life Styles, Cultures, Ideas, Manners and Knowledge. So many things to give, So many things to take, things to teach, things to learn and all so much in such a shortness of time. Again I started to divide myself. Like how a cell proliferates itself, each one of me going after something in my head, balancing all the information and spreading out the WORDS, hearing the WORDS, memorizing, answering, questioning, the similarities, the differences and all to build up a relation, like a string bonding one to another. To touch lives. To unify. The Job became my teacher, and just like a guarding angel I suddenly had so much respect for it. It started to raise me up, gave me strength and courage to be out there by my own and not so long after, I was changed.

You are not the same person who starts a good book. If the book is truly written by the magic of writing (Like how Jane Austen, Salinger, Hardy, J.K. Rowling, Elizabeth Gilbert, Bulgakov, Cheryl Strayed and etc. are.) it takes some part of you and leaves you something else. Like how a wave does to the shore, takes and leaves stuff. With every journey, with every tour, with every new people, I was changed. And in some cases, I would take some of those divided characters out of me and send them away with the people I’ve met. Like some parts of me are still living with them, far away from home, far away from me but we still have the same beating heart that echoes through the distances. Just to remind me I was born once but I got to live a thousand lives, got to be in a thousand places, got to be me and still be everyone else.

#BLESSED

Persian Gardens Or Ideology Of A Country

I bet you all know the world Paradise. Ever wondered where it came from? Once upon a time … around 2500 years ago there was this King called Cyrus. Around his palace he decorated his own gardens and planted the trees and seeds himself and called them “Paradise”. Greek’s historians believed that they were so beautiful, just like heaven on earth so with the meaning of heaven (In Persian it means “made around a building” or sth like that) attached to it, it entered the Latin languages.
Since ever, Persians had this concept about their country as it to be a “Garden”. A garden has a Gardener as a country should have a king. The gardener makes water channels, plant seeds, watches over the field and defiantly would have walls or fences protecting their land. Just as a king should do. By Rules and Justice, they should put everything in order, and protect the people, and if both, the Gardener and the King succeed, the harvest would be a country/garden in peace, green as the sign of life with happy people.

According to Ancient Persia’s mighty law: “The country should only have a King or Queen, submitted by God (Ahura-Mazdā) himself”. No wonder they believed drought, rainless years, chaos and yellow fields and people without a land to cultivate, are the signs of an unworthy King, not supported by God but by his own will to control power. This idea did not limit itself to gardens, all Persian Famous carpets, colorful tiles, domes even our literature are reflecting this concept.
Here are the name of some of our famous Gardens:
Eram Garden, Shiraz
Del-Gosha Garden, Shiraz
Jahan-Nama Garden, Shiraz
Shazdeh Garden, Mahan, Kerman
Fin Garden, Kashan, Isfahan
Chehel-Sotun, Isfahan
Dolat-Abad Garden, Yazd
El-Goli, Tabriz
Sa’ad-Abad Garden, Tehran

We Persians have an old expression that can be translated like this “If it’s the right flower, it will smell for itself, no need talk about it”. So enough with the talk, come and see for yourself. YOU ALL ARE INVITED…
See ya:)

 
  

"Keep going on" Is An Old Myth

There’s this tale In Iran, this living myth with a beating heart but forgotten in time, that’s said it reveals itself only to those who go after it and brave enough to pull the curtain away.

Once upon a time there was this God of time called Zorvān, He was the king of everything but yet without an heir to give up the whole kingdom and the creation of earth and beings to. So he prays and prays for nearly a thousand years to have a son. A sun so bright and wise, with a pure heart and kind. As a holly sing of unity Zorvān was both male and female and was able to get pregnant by itself. When the praying time was about to end he falls with doubts. Wonders whether his prayings will ever be answered and happen? What if it was all for nothing? What if he has wasted his time with waiting and wishing?

Thousand years passed and he was pregnant with a twin. One pure hearted soul of a son bright and wise enough to be the creator, for all the years Zorvān believed in good, and one dark, vicious septic soul that had no mind but to destroy for the doubts he had.

The myth goes on and on about what happens next. But what I came to understand about this was that first it looked stupid. How could he be praying when there was nothing but him? To whom he was praying to? How could he get pregnant and why on earth there had to be such a punishment for just doubting your stupid prayers?

But I finally got the point. I had to pull the curtain away to see what it was trying to say …

You may have a dream, You may have a vision, you may want something in life so bad … and yes you are all alone in that, yes it is just you and only you and nothing but you. You wish, you pray, you imagine, you talk about it, describe it, pint it , fight for it but only if you’re strong enough to keep up to it, you’ll meet that dream in the end. Doubts are invisible insidious creatures. They might not come out as a dark messy soul within our wish but will weary us, make us hopeless dreamless like we’ve had it all and just want the agony to end. The question is, who could ever escape doubts? Not even mighty Zorvān, the God could stay pure! Then what’s the mystery?

Another layer should be curved away from this myth… we’ve to dig deeper … look harder. Zorvān NEVER GAVE UP… no matter how strong his doubts were getting, he kept on praying harder till he finally reached his wish. Sure he had to deal with the consequences of his doubts and that’s the rest of the tale but the whole point is about KEEP GOING ON.

So always always always chose to get back in the game coz NEVER GIVING UP will be the only strength you would want to hold on to, such a strength than rises you as God who’s able to make wishes happen, the only power that will be there when you’re all alone, YOUR ONLY PROPERTY … and this myth comes from how long ago?  Yeah ... about 2000 years ago!!

 Come, Visit the land where mystery and history meet.

 PS: The first picture is not Zorvan.

Carton To Cocoon

So here’s the story, I was 18 when I stared a rebellion against fate! I said it’s my life I want to do what I want with it. I want to do it my way… even if I lose, at least is was my choice and I could get along with that.

I was being trained to be an engineer, and it’s not really easy to look for something else when you’re surrounded by PHD ENGINEERS. I wasn’t even aware of that. Until one lazy afternoon in spring’s holiday my attention was caught up by one our relatives talking about her sister and how she’s given this entrance exam THREE times (which means THREE YEARS), just to get accepted at the major she wanted for always and that was Archaeology.

For those who don’t know how the education system in Iran works, I’ve to say in high school we’ve 5 majors, Math and Physics, Biology, Humanities, Art and the last one is about handy many jobs and stuff. So if you wish to be doctor you study biology  in high school and get a biology diploma, spend a year in pre-university classes, then give an entrance exam in biology field and based upon your score you get to choose what you wanna study in UNIVERSITY for bachelor. I was two months away from my final exams, For Math and Physics Diploma … and while she was talking I was watching how my life would be over the years in my head and felt like something was chocking me! Like a huge burden on my neck, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even run out for air, I was immobilised and my veins were pulsing with total fear not blood. Me? An Engineer? With maps and tools for measuring and numbers and great machines and all I would care about would be physics? Like the actual surface of a thing that can be seen and not caring whether there’s more than that or not? Even if that counted in life I’d still be stepping on the exact same foot prince that my father, Aunts and Uncle and my friend’s parents and all others -as far as I knew around me- have left behind. Would I wanted to be a repeat? Not knowing what else is there to life? The movie ended with me Trapped in a box and I literally could smell the septic of the carton. The exact moment I saw myself being destroyed, there came a breeze of a memory I had when I was a little girl … watching Beauty & The Beast, Where Bell is asked to marry Gaston and he pictures an image of their life together and bell is likely to throw up, She says NO and sings a song and as I remembered the song I shouted:

                        

      “I WANT MUCH MORE THAN THIS PROVINCIAL LIFE”

Like a spell, a magic spell, one like Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo, chains were broken, I wanted a life with books and stories and poetry where fairy tales would still matter and not just to read and know beside my job in life, I wanted that to be my job and my life and I had that spirit inside me, I just have had forgotten it for so so long and It reached out for me to save me and I found oxygen again. That carton box turned into a cocoon so it would break free and let me out into the world as something new, as something I found to be, more beautiful … A BUTTERFLY…!

And that's how I got my bachelor in History and MA's in old Persian literature and Culture.

The Empty Bucket

We all have an inner empty bucket that needs to be filled  every now and then just in case some thing tragic happens and we've to create hope out of it in order to keep going on, to stand on our feet till the storm passes.

Each joy full moment, any sweet word or smile could count, but some times there are greater sources, not from people currently surrounding us. Series of actions have happened in a special time and place in the past, all from people that maybe decades, centuries or even millennium far from us, but their voice echoes through time, and if we give them our ears, we can hear them whispering the message of hope, that how ever the storm was, how wounded they've been they stood hard enough to meet us in the time of need, to give us strength.

Take this from a girl in who lives in Middle East ...THE PAST CAN HELP ... 

So the next time you are walking down a street, or reading a book or watching something, and feel that tender touch that gives you the goosebumps, tickles your soul a little, make you say WOW ... capture that moment, phrase or just be quick and take a sip and pour in into your bucket, Coz who knows what will happen in the future and what might you need, so the law goes like this live in the present but hear from the past and built your future ... see SIMPLE but i agree, NOT EASY ...!

And for those of you who are more daring in life, Start traveling, nothing is better to see tho world and different nations.. see how other deal with LIFE!

First Step: Acceptance

Life could be such a big miss understanding and at the same time amazing and a priceless experience...
What do you know about life when you're 18 and just about to start University?
What do you really know about your perfect ideas and how does the reality take place?
How hard life could be when you've just came out of a battlefield with victory in your hand and ignoring every one's wishes and expectations to reach your own?
You've won your battle and you think sun rises and setts with you, you've done the impossible... not so many are like you...
So with a hand full of confidence you start to build your castle of cards and not knowing the thunderstorm is on its way.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMM
Reality hits and just like a simple leaf in the wind, you get tossed and twisted in life, day after day...
Could that be all you wonder? Fighting so hard to get what you wanted to study the only passion you ever had since you were ten ... it all comes to this? Lost on the harsh paths of life? not knowing how the future will turn out? Doing stuffs you hated ? Wondering which age to give in to? 25 as the calendar says or 84 as your heart and soul screams!
That was me a year and half ago!!
Life was nooooo waaay near the image I had in my mind when I started to live on my own feet and go after my dreams at 18!
I guess this could be a similar story for so many people out there. I was trying to move a brick wall with my bear hands THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE MOVED ... life was being the adult I needed at that time, i was supposed to learn sth... and I did!
During all those years every one kept telling me "YOU SHOULD BE A TOUR GUIDE" ... "IT'S IN YOUR BLOOD" ... and I kept on resisting till there was no other way but to be one! Funny how Unexpected and Unwanted turns out to be just what you were looking for...   
So here I am, on the softness of the silk way of my land which has her arms OPEN to WELCOME you ALL since history started.
To sum it all up:
Hi, My name is Parniyan -which means Silk btw-
And I'm a Tour Guide 
If you Keep up and stay close to this blog, who knows...one day... WE MIGHT EVEN MEET...