Saturday, April 18, 2009

Layla and Majnoon

Nizami Kunjehei was one of the poets of the late 6th and early 7th century (hijri). He's one of the most famous poets of stories/poems read at parties and gatherings in Iran. He is famous for 5 books:
1. Makhzanul Asrar
2. Khusru and Shireen
3. Layli and Majnoon (they call her Layli in Farsi, Layla in Arabic)
4. Haft Paykar
5. Iskander Nameh (lifestory of Alexander the Great)

Layli and Majnoon is a Romeo and Juliet-type story.

Layli and Majnoon (not his real name, means madman) lived in the same village. They loved each other a lot, but when her father found out, he married her off to someone else in a village far away.

Majnoon was so caught up in the love of Layli and so depressed at her loss, that he used to wander the deserts and mountains. His father, seeing Majnoon's grief, was very upset and tried to research ways of removing Majnoon's grief and freeing him from the 'pain' of the love of Layli.

Majnoon's father tried to advise his son to help him overcome his grief at the loss of Layli, but the fire of the love of Layli was too strong and all the fatherly advise was forgotten.

Majnoon's father sought the counsel of his relatives who advised him to take Majnoon to Makkah and that perhaps the association with Allah will lessen his grief. But when they got to Makkah, all Majnoon prayed for was for Allah to take some years of his life and give them to Layli (i.e. prayed for her long life) and no other prayers!

When the father heard this prayer of Majnoon, he understood that the pain of the love of Layli has no cure.

Basically at the end of the story, Layli dies in childbirth. Majnoon travels to visit her grave and cries so much there that he dies too.

You have no idea how surprised I was to be studying a love story in the religious city of Qum!!

Update...

Sorry guys! Need to get into the habit of blogging a bit more regularly... I have so many pics and anecdotes to post up! Believe me, life in Qum is just as busy as life in London!

Good news is that after 6 months of hard slog, tears and tantrums, I have FINALLY FINISHED FARSI!!!!!!!!! Technically, we didn't finish the second half of the last book (It's all boring poetry that no one understands anyway). Long story, but the summary is that after one finishes Farsi, they move onto the next level - called Tamhidiyya - which is basic Islamic Studies. Anyone who has been through the Madressa (Sunday School) System would whizz through this. The aim is to improve our Farsi, introduce us to religious textbook language and get everyone's basic knowledge upto the same level. After we were due to finish Farsi, there wouldn't have been enough time or teachers to start a new batch of students on the Tamhiddiyya course, so the head of department decided to allow us to wrap up as many exams as we could and join the class that was a week ahead of us! Good news for us!!

My classes still run 6 days a week, 4 hours a day. I'm studying Islamic History (Life of the Holy Prophet), Akhlaq (Manners and etiquettes), Qur'an (How to recite properly) and Raveshe Tahseel (Study skills). The rest of the class is studying Akham (Islamic Laws), which I've dropped this term, due to teaching commitments. (I promised I would study the book myself and sit the exam at a later date)

We're really blessed to have an amazing set of teachers. The Akhlaq teacher used to be a Farsi teacher, so she speaks slowly and the History teacher teaches us in the form of Q&A - the questions being potential exam questions. The Qur'an teacher, on the other hand, is a bit of a dragon. Most of the class skips her lesson. She almost reduced a student to tears today! The class is an easy class and the homework is easy, so I'm staying put for a bit.

The study skills teacher is funny. She's all over the place- practically dancing on the stage in front of us as she teaches! The Iranian method of teaching is to work through the book from beginning to end. This teacher skips from lesson 1 to lesson 10, then goes through lesson 5. After 6 months of the Iranian ways, I'm finding it hard to cope with this kind of randomness!

I thought that after finishing Farsi, I might get a bit of respite/get my social life back. Unfortunately, I'm still having to put in a couple hours for every teaching hour to understand the text books and write up my notes! Whereas Farsi was all about cramming words and phrases, at least this is a bit more interesting and applicable to life.

2 noteworthy incidents from today that I have to relate:

1. Remember a post from a while back about the black chador that we all have to wear? Today, as I was exiting the bus, my chador got stuck on a nail on the step of the bus. Without realising, I carried on walking. Thought the person behind me was stepping on my chador and was about to turn around and shout at them when I realised what had happened! I dread to think what would have happened if I had carried on walking :-(

2. Lesson 3 from our Akhlaq book was all about cheerfullness and good words etc. World looks brighter from behind a smile and all that. The next lesson was about helping people and being there for them. Before we started lesson 4, our teacher asked us how we can help people. So we mentioned all the usual methods - give money, food, teach them etc. She asked us if we were not able to help physically, what else could we do. So one of the students replied with "give them a smile". We all started cracking up - even the teacher! Between her laughing, she tried to explain that if someone's relative has died and we go to console them with a smile, they are not going to be too impressed!

Friday, April 3, 2009

Nowrooz

Nowrooz is the first day of the Iranian New Year (Nowrooz literally means 'new day'). It also marks the beginning of spring. (Although this year, spring started a lot earlier, which probably means a scortching summer!)

Many of the Nowrooz traditions are rooted from pre-Islamic (Zorastrian) times, and its slightly annoying that Iranians sometimes try and 'Islamacise' them!

Nowrooz is really like Christmas back home. People go crazy shopping for new clothes, household goods and stocking up the cupboards. The only difference is that unlike back home where you have the post-xmas sales, prices in Iran tend to go up in the new year. (e.g. onions used to be 500 Tomans a kilo, now they are over 1000 Tomans!)

Before Nowrooz, Iranians give their homes a thorough spring clean - called Khuneh Tekouni (or house shaking!)

On the first day of Nowrooz, Iranians sit around the haft seen sufreh (haft means seven, seen is a letter of the alphabet and sufreh is the table cloth, traditionally white for Nowrooz). There are 7 things all beginning with the letter seen on this table cloth:

1. Sabzi - wheat, barley or lentils to symbolise rebirth
2. Samanu - a sweer pudding made from wheat germ to symbolise affluence (I have some in my freezer if anyone wants to try it!)
3. Senjed - dried fruit to symbolise love
4. Sir - garlic to symbolise medicine
5. Seeb - apples to symbolise beauty and health
6. Somaq - sumac berries to symbolise the colour of sunrise
7. Sirkeh - vinegar to symbolise age and patience

Stores sell plastic versions of the above, but I'm told that authentic households use the real stuff!

There's also a gold fish (in a bowl) on the sufreh to symbolise the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving. I was warned before hand that Nowrooz goldfish are like fairground fish - they don't last very long. I still HAD to buy some. I named them Layla and Majnoon after the Persian Romeo and Juliet! Majnoon sadly died after 8 days. Layla couldn't stand the grief and sadly died a few days later :-( The past week, as I've been walking home from school, I've seen dead goldfish in the alleyways being eaten by birds. The circle of life continues...

The 13th day of Nowrooz is called "Rooze Jamhooriye Islami" - the day of the Islamic Republic. Its the day on which the Iranians all voted to have an Islamic Republic.

The 14th day is called "Rooze Tabiyat" or Nature day. Apparently its back luck to stay in your house on this day! All the shops are closed and the town is deserted. Not being an Iranian myself, I just stayed at home and studied. Later in the afternoon, I had to go out on an errand on the outskirts of town. The taxi driver happened to be someone who had picked us up on a previous occasion. The whole way to my friend's house and the whole way back, the driver lectured me on how I had done something really bad by staying at home. I had to bite my tongue and stop myself from telling him that these are your fire worshiping traditions, not mine. In true 'Madagascar' style (the film, not the country), I just smiled and waved!

Interestingly though, my errand took me to Shahrake Mahdiyah, which is one of the small townships built on the edge of Qum for foreign students. The township is situated next to one of the bigger parks of the city - Bustane Allawi. To get to Shahrake Mahdiyah, you kinda have to go further, past the entrance to the park and then do a U-turn and come back. I got a glimpse of the park - it was RAMMED! It seemed as if the whole population of Qum was at Bustane Allawi! People had even brought tents!

Usually, my school gives 2 week's off for Nowrooz, but this year, we only got one week (plus the 13th and 14th!) The 8th to the 12th were really half steam though. Alot of teachers were still visiting their home cities and one day the weather was really bad, so people didn't come it. It rained so much that cars were swept away in the usually dry river! We received news of 8 people dying in Qum!