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:)

 
  

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...