Like all loving fathers, he wants to pass on the wisdom of his experience to his little girl, who he calls "The Light of Dad's House". He acknowledges how dear she is to him and how much he has spoiled him. But he continues to describe her place in the world in a way that reflects his Persian culture.
In your little world,
There is you and your dolls.
They being your toys.
You being the toy of the world.
Of course, she will grow up and experience both joy and sorrow, he says. But he urges that for as long she is not going to make sense out of the world, she should sleep tight. As lullabies go, this father is certainly sending mixed messages about life.; though you might say he is just being very realistic. Still, he fully expects her to be disappointed by life.
A day will come when Dad
Will sit at home all alone.
That will be the time that you drunkenly
Will laugh at me and this world.
From Aghili's "Light of Dad's House" (Cheragh-e-Khoone Baba"
She is the Light of Daddy's House
Only Thing I Own is a Pure Heart
"I thought Persian values was about driving Mercedes and Ferrari's," said the 20-year old Persian college student innocently as we were riding on a Long Island Railroad train to Great Neck the other night. "I understand why you might think that," I said, "but true Persian values, believe it or not, are actually quite non-materialistic." He was understandably surprised, so I told him about the song lyrics below, whose subplot is about a man who was dumped by a woman. But the real story of the song is about being content with what you have.
Utterly free
From Because and Why
With what is given by God
Always content
Always content
After complaining to her about why she left him, the man goes on to declare himself to be a Darvish, a mystical figure whose origins are beyond the scope of this blog. For our purposes, note the man's attitude toward material things.
I am a darvish
And the world to me
Is nothing but a fist full of soil
The whole sum of my belongings
Is a pure heart.
A darvish will spend the night
On any old rag
A drop of water
Or an entire sea
Makes no difference to him.
(Golpa's "Darvish")
What This Blog is All About
Hello Everyone. Welcome to my new blog.
To begin my introduction of the blog, let me say a few words about you. You have little or no memory of Iran. You don't speak fluent Farsi, if at all. Your parents or grandparents might have once lived there but for the most part, your connection to Persian culture is through its food, music, and some basic Farsi. Or maybe your only connection to Iran and Persian culture is having neighbors who come from that part of the world.
Regardless of your particular background, thank you for visiting this page, and I hope you take something from it.
Now that you have a sense of who my target audience is, I want to describe to you what my vision for the site is. To do that, I think it would be helpful to introduce myself and tell you a bit about my own background. My name is Raymond Iryami. I left Iran on January 4, 1982 at the age of 10 and, now, with about 25 minutes until my 36th birthday, I am a lawyer living in Great Neck, New York. I happen to be Jewish--yes, there exist Jews in Iran--but my religion is largely irrelevant to this blog.
I am creating this blog, because I have long sensed that there is an important aspect of being Persian that is simply not visible today on the streets of Middle Neck Road or Rodeo Drive. I will elaborate more on this point in other postings, but for now, let's just say that I hope will find items on this blog that will surprise you a bit. Stay tuned.
By nature, this blog will have no set format. But I expect to include in the blog items on topics including love, sex, broken hearts, loneliness, and God using English passages from Persian songs, poems, stories, fables, anecdotes, and proverbs. Naturally, your questions and comments are welcomed. I hope this will be the beginning of a meaningful dialogue for both of us.