Caspian Sea!

A trip to the Caspian sea. Date unknown. I do not remember whether I went on this trip when I was a student or teacher. I only remember that on several occasions I went with group of youngmen and women to the Capsian for a week long as part of various programmes. this photo was taken during one of those trips.

In the photo at the top, I am sitting in the middle with the big straw hat. In the phto below I am first from right.

A wedding, my friend's sister got married!

The wedding of Akhtar's younger sister Heshmat. The photo in the left: I am standing beside Akhtar, Simin who by then had turned into an elegant young woman is standing on the left of the bride. The photo on the right: young, teenage Manuchehr is in the background, eating something. I am standing beside the bride and there are others I don't remember their names.

Akhtar's younger sister, came to stay with her and study like Simin and Mannuchehr who lived with me. Akhtar had a number of older sisters who lived in Bam. They had lost their mother in young age. When I met Akhtar in mid-1950s she was already motherless. Their father was a very good man who took care of them all. As it seemed very normal in those days, as soon as Akhtar came to Tehran to study she took her sister with her. They never left Tehran.

For the history I must add a few lines here. In those days young men and women were sent to Tehran to study on their own. the families trusted their children. I knew a lot of girls who had rented rooms in the houses where other rooms were occupied by male students. There was a friendly and safe relationship among all and respect was the rule of land. Nosrat lived in such condition where we often went for a chat during lunch times, knowing that other male students lived in other rooms. No one bothered anyone. All seemed natural unlike these days that relations between men and women students is contantly curtailed in fear of immoral behaviour.

A wedding along other weddings!

Nosrat Razavi Wedding in September 1961 to one of mature students. Look at us! Don't we look cool!

On the top right hand photo, I am second from the left with Akhtar beside me and a woman who was a TV presenter beside her. Then we have the bride and groom.

During college years many men and women became close, fell in love, dated and ultimately got married. Some of the love affairs ended in break up and heart ache. Some marriages took place in haste in the last months before the end of term. Esmat married a man from outside her class, so did many others. By then I was preparing for a trip to the US.

Colleg years come to an end taking us into what made our dreams and our future.

Well, an era of my life came to a close with this photo which is the last of the series of my college years.

It is a very dear photo to me as it shows all I cared for in those years. And maybe for the first time after 50 years I can show you the the photo of the first and the last young man I fanicied seriously. Just fancied. Nothing came out of it. Just a youthful crash. Nothing less. He is the young man second from left on the third row ( will not reveal his name in case he might read this blog). I am sitting right behind the man with the tie and white shirt and I know I would never see my amorous again as a chapter of our lives was coming to a close and we went out separate ways. Akhtar is beside me talking to some one. A speck of moment registered in history and all gone and forgotten. Look at all these faces; beautiful, handsome, elegant, having no relevance with the ugliness through which Iranian students are portrayed these days. I wonder where all these young men and women of 1950s-60s Iran are and what did they do with their lives? Mine sailed through calm seas as well as very rough waves and high winds and thunder and also calm and sunny days. Flaoting, dreaming, soundless as a feather.

Last photos of college years.

These photos are almost the last taken by Mani, the photographer of us during the three years at the college. It was our enire class although I have forgotten most of thenames. The man with glasses was our American teacher, a young man called John (forgotten surname) who was part of the Peace Corpse serving in Iran. He was nice and gentle and asked me in the last weeks of the college if I fancy to go with him to the US!

It happened that I went to the US a few months later but surely not with him!

Here in these photos I am sitting in the front row wearing my famous fur coat which I had bought from doantown Tehran and which not only kept me very warm during Tehran's cold winters but made me the talk of college for wearing such elegant coat. It looked very expensive but only Fereshteh and I knew how little was paid for it!

Dr Hamidi Shirazi, our Persian teacher.

Photos taken in 1962.

Apart from English literature, we had to pass other modules as well. Persian literature was one of the many I remember was taught by the late Dr Hamidi Shirazi, a poet and author who was mostly famous for his love affair with a fellow student during his university years. He wrote numerous pieces in praise of his aomrous whom he never managed to marry. His love story was similar to that of Saidi Sirjani, another poet and writer (later killed in the prisons of the Islamic republic. Sirjani fell in love with a fellow student and was at some stage explelled from the university for his passion and the scandal it created). Both Dr Hamidi Shirazi and Saidi Sirjani became famous not primarily for their valuable literary work but their scandolous love affair.

However, in the first photo and indeed the res,t Dr Hamidi Shirazi is standing in the middle in the dark suit. I am second from right in two photos but absent from the third (the left one). According to my friends, I looked very elegant in the silk grey dress and the hair style which I had adopted in those days.

Valleys carved inside the Alborz mountain range; a place for us to explore and expand!

Here are two photos of different times on a tour of the mountains of north Tehran. The first was taken in the early June 1962 shortly before the college finished and we graduated. In the back, the word Darakeh reminds us of the place we posed for the shot. Darakeh was in those days a valley which started from a point where the notorious evin prison was later built. Darakeh stretched deep into the heart of the Alborz mountains range which skirt the nothern part of Tehran. The uppoer you went the deeper and fresher the air and the more beautiful the scenery became. But of course I am talking about a long gone era. Nowadays, as I have heard, Darken valley had fallen into the hands of developerwho had built high rises and buried the beauty once it was famous for.

The second photo in the bottom was taken in February 1961 in a different location; Shahabad. This again was another opening to the heart of the Alborz mountain ranges from northern Tehran. The valley which began from Shahabad would have its turn and twist and waterfalls and cafes on the way to the peak. On both these photos we were accampanied by Dr Pasargadi who loved to stay close to his students through outdoor activities.

Picnics in Darakeh with Dr Pasargadi, our teacher, 1961

In the second and third year of college we used to go on picnics on the mountains and valleys of northern Tehran with Dr Pasargadi as our guide and teacher. Pasargadi was funny, sporty and we all loved to sit in his classes. On these days I often took Simin and Manuchehr with me.

They were teenagers in high school years and my friends in the college, especially the ones from Kerman province met them often especially when after the end of year we all travelled back to Kerman by bus to spend the summer with our families.

The photo on the top alongside the falls shows Dr Pasargadi in a relaxed pose with Manuchehr in front of him. I am sitting on the left of the falls with Rafat Hassanpour and another girl.

The photo on the right of the second row, shows Manuchehr sitting beside me on the left and Simin standing.

These photos were taken by Mani on a day or days we went to Darakeh valleys, climbed the mountains and passed the falls and had a wonderful picnic.

A day trip to the Faculty of Agriculture in Karaj.

We are eating at the faculty's canteen, a lucnh much remembered!

A day trip to the Faculty of Agriculture in Karaj, a town outside western Tehran. Students from various departments came to this expedition. Photos show all of us in various places of the faculty. On the photo in the left above the stuffed animal, Akhtar (left), Nosrat and I pose for Mani photographer. The photo on the right we are joined by other female students from the group. The rest of the photos show all of us in various parts of the faculty and at the canteen. There is not date on the photo but I assume it was in our second year, 1961.

Friendship blossoms.

Esmat and I in a rare scene. she decided to take off her scarf forn this photo. Why I dont remember.

We were part of history, yes we were.

Now, these two photos of me were taken in different seasons. The one with the fur coat was taken in the winter 1962, our final year. I have other phtos with this coat which I loved and I remember I loved my check skirt as well.

Comparing this to the outfit of students in Iran now, one would think what a world! How can a country change this to that we witness today? Were these photos made up in our minds or taken in another planet another faraway country? No, my friends, this was Iran. We were there. We existed although a lot of effort goes into our inahilation and extinction. We will not let to be erased from history as we were there and these photos of us, individual are published publicly for one purpose and only one purpose: This was Iran, colourful, blossoming and if not destroyed by the harricane of the Islamic revolution we might have been an advanced, modern, prosperous and happy and friendly nation. We were going that way. What happened that we destroyed ourselves by our own hands?

Once again in the college grounds.

Two photos of 1960 in the college. Left, Akhtar and I. It was taken the same day Akhtar had her hair on top of her head. In the second picture, me on the left, Rouhi and Kobra. The girl in the front, well I don't remember the name any longer.
It seems this Mani phto shop guy was always around to take our photo and make loads of money!

My first library membership card

This is my first Library card. Library of Parliament, date of issue 6 Ocatober 1960. I cannot remember whether I ever used the library. This card is among the few that has remained from those long gone years.

first term in college

Akhtar and I in the first term of college. November 1960.

How do all these women look? Where are they?

This was taken in 1961 just before we finish our degree.

Here we are once again. Standing from left is Akhtar with that hair! Rouhi Salahshour.

Sitting from left a girl from my class, me, Rafa'at Hassanpour and Pouran Amini.

Where are all these women I wonder? Old? Dead? Alive? Have they lived a happy life?

The last I saw Akhtar after some 24 years, I wished I hadn't seen her and instead kept the sweet memories I had of her. She had become old (was 4 years older than me), moany with that husband who had turned into a religous fenatic. We didn't have much in common and our time spent in me listening to some one I knew not. When I left their apartment, all those sweet memories of our youth evaporated like bubbles over water. Was our life all bubbles over water?

Last year in college.

Again Photo Mani and us in late March 1962 a few months before the end of three year college. From right, Rafat Hassanpour, Akhtar and I. Then I had turned into a very elgant young girl with a taste for fashion. I remember I bought the high heel shoes in a shop in downtown Tehran where the owner sold end of lie products. If one was not too fussy one could buy nice shoes at a very low price. Fereshteh was the one who knew about this shoe shop and who took me there to buy nice shoes.

A photo for my grandma!

Now, this photo was taken by Mani in the college garden and sent to my grandma. On the back which is scanned I had written "to my dearest grandma, hope you accept it". Date: 10 April 1962. I sent this photo via post to Bam while grandma was gravely ill. Later, I was told that she put this photo under her pillow and brought it back every once in a while, called my name and cried.

Photo taken by Mani Studios, located at Naderi Avenue, TelL: 37004.

We can tell the world we were!

Akhtar's photo was taken in October 1961 in the Crystal Studios or Photo Crystal as it says in the back of the photo!

Three of my dear Friends: Top, Akhtar Bahri, EsmatDargahi ( right) and Fereshteh Afshar. Esmat's photo was taken in Studio Jan on Shahpour Avenue opposite Farhang Avenue in 1960.

Fereshteh's photo was taken in Studio Crystal, Ferdousi, opposite Bank Meli.

Fereshteh was one of the few very beautiful women I met in the first year of college. She worked in the library and always wore black. Later when we became friends she told me of her sad life at that young age. She married a man whom she had fallen in love with and had a baby son (Shahriar) who was 4 months at the time we became friends. Sadly, her husband who worked in the Iranian Oil Company died in an accident leaving her a widow at 20. Naturally, she was devastated and did not know what to do with her life. Later, she was given a job at the oil company and there she married one of her late husband's colleagues and had many children with him although she was never happy with her life. She moved to the US after the revolution and the last I saw of her was after the revoluti0on when she came to visit and that was it. Events scattered us everywhere across the globe but keeping the memory of our friendship and the images of our young age is keeping all of us alive aven after we are gone.

We made a big effort to impress the boys in the college!

A photo of me and Rouhi Salahshour who came from the southern city of Ahwaz to study. The photo was taken in Ocatober 1961. We girls all competed with eachother to do our hair, to buy new materials to make dresses. There were no boutiques or dress shops in Tehran at the time to have ready made designer clothes as today. We either had to give the material to the tailor or do the tailoring ourselves. As we were all students with little money, we all knew a bit of tailoring and often satyed late at night to make a top or skirt. Trousers were not common as they are now not until the 1970s. However, we spent hours with rollers on our hair making a dress. You can see our fashionable hair and outfit in all the photos. I suppose it was mostly to impress the boys who we fancied. The boy I fancied used to and I suppose he fancied me was from the city of Tabriz in the Turkish region of Iran. We were in the same class in my first term of college where I was the only female among the class. But then when I changed subject and transferred to the English department he stopped talking to me. Well, that was the end of my platonic affair but not the end of my fashion craze for nice dress and hair style.

A freindship that lasted for many years.

These photos and many others were also taken by Mani in all the gardens of the college. It seemed Mani was always present there and we were ready for a shoot. Here I am in various poses with my friend Esmat Dargahi. I befriended her in the second year and our friendship deepened as it went alond. She always wore a scarf as she believed it right for her and we dide not mind that. Years later, Esmat was promoted as headmastewr of a large boys school; still wearing the headscarf but in fashion. She believed she looked like Indian actresses and the next photo was taken bearing that in mind. The first photo was taken in year 1960 but the rest were taken a year later in 1961 .