Rah va Rahavard (An Experience-Narrative of a Life) by Mohammad Kianoush-Rad – Part Eight

Rah va Rahavard

An Experience-Narrative of a Life

Mohammad Kianoush-Rad

Part Eight — The Only Path of Liberation

The Fatemiyeh Mosque of Kianpars was built from a dispute between two neighbors, Zaer Mallouh and Zaer Kheyzir, and in a reconciliation for God's sake.

Kheyzir's agricultural land was in the western part of the Karun. The place where today there is a park and the central library. Kheyzir was quiet, calm, humble, and harmless. Naneh Mohammad, Kheyzir's wife, was a patient and kind woman. Our house was wall to wall with theirs.

Naneh Mohammad used to bake bread in the tanoor of her house. The smoke of the tanoor fire and the smell of baking bread would come to our house. The pleasant smell of Naneh Mohammad's fresh bread smelled of paradise.

My God, this is the very thing that drove man out of paradise. Perhaps if he had not eaten wheat and had not rebelled, he would never have understood the sorrow of separation and the longing for return. Rebellion gave him life and love, and reaching.

In the afternoon, I would take the water hose in my hand and sprinkle water on the courtyard, which was brick-paved, and on the walls, which were of mud and straw. In that cool shade, sprinkling water on the brick ground and the rising of water vapor and the scent of the mud-straw walls was delightful.

In the evenings I would turn on the tape recorder. I would listen loudly to the cassettes of Al-Minshawi and Abdul Basit. I wanted the neighbors and passersby to share in this heavenly Quranic affair too. We too wanted to take people to paradise.

Youth and maturity had come to us too. We were not blind and deaf. I saw the people around us. Khayyam Restaurant, the "El Chico" dance club of the Chinese in the third roundabout of Kianpars, the place where the Mohammadi Mosque is now built. Going to El Chico alone and unmarried was not possible. The condition of entry was a boy and a girl accompanying each other. The boys and girls, heedless of the world's sorrow, would dance and frolic. They were happy and enjoyed themselves. The Kianpars Club was also a place for merrymaking, dancing, singing, and revelry. Now at the corner of West 10th Street, an airline company is located there.

My father was worried about my going to these places. One day my father said in the mosque: Be careful, do not go somewhere else under the name of the cinema. I understood what he meant.

Sometimes he would come to my school. To take me home. He came by bicycle. He put me on the front of the bicycle. Arash School was in Amaniyeh and near SAVAK. When we passed in front of SAVAK, he pointed out SAVAK to me and said: Do you know where this is? This is SAVAK. If you want to enter politics, first study and then enter politics. I do not know why that day, without introduction, he said such a thing. These were the only two pieces of advice I heard from him. Nothing else. His silence and his mere gaze.

The mosque kept us and our politics. The mosque and the love of struggle and adventure. How good youth was. Without resentment, without envy, without greed, without lust, and without covetousness, we were full of zeal and mischief.

Our three-person group in the mosque was the core of cultural, political, and revolutionary activities. Me, Ahmad Bidehandi, and Mehdi Rouhani. Mohammad Javidan joined us a few months before the revolution. He managed the Quran sessions. Mohammad spoke fiery, beautiful, and eloquent words, and while reciting the Quran, he would take a detour into politics and the Shah.

One day Bahram Dindamal, who was a 13, 14-year-old teenager, came running and said: "The officers, the officers. The officers are coming." Two soldiers and a non-commissioned officer were coming to the mosque. Mohammad immediately changed his tone. He opened the Quran and began to recite the Quran loudly. The non-commissioned officer turned to Mr.... and said: These people are not doing anything. They are just reading the Quran. They turned back and left.

In 1976, I became acquainted with a talented person named Farhad Mohandespour at high school. He was silent and calm, and suddenly his speech would blossom. He was active in the high school theater association. His home was in Kamplu, but he would come to our mosque. Our friendship led to joint cultural work.

In 1977, we wrote a play and performed it secretly at home. The title of the play was: "Is Man an Obedient Creature or Not." Our living room was large. Like the Arabs' guest room. We hung a large sheet as a curtain on both sides of the room. We arranged the stage. We made a brief set. We arranged a table, chairs, a blackboard, and a classroom on the stage of the room. I played the role of the student, Mehdi the role of the teacher, and Farhad the role of the school disciplinarian.

The teacher was dictating to the student and said: Write "Man is an obedient creature." The student paused at writing "is." He hesitated. He would not write "is." He wanted to write "is not," which would start an argument. "Is or is not," that was the question. The disciplinarian comes to the class. First with kind words, then bribery, threats, and finally, a bloody punishment. Performing such a play in 1977 was enlightening for the audience and courageous for us.

After that, Mehdi and I made a short fiction film with a revolutionary theme. In this short eight-millimeter film, Ahmad Esmaili, Hamid Qilan, Ahmad Bidehandi, and others played roles. The film "Qiyam" (Uprising) was made in late 1977 or early 1978. A small child lives in Hasir-Abad of Ahvaz. He sees the scenes of poverty and lack of water of the people and, in Kianpars, the aristocratic houses. He goes to the side of the river and feels regret. It is martial law. The child goes to a toy shop, steals a gun, and in his childish imagination, goes to armed struggle and is killed. Another child takes his gun on his shoulder.

Our reading that day was "the only path of liberation is armed struggle," and today's reading of that film might be that "armed struggle is a childish emotion."

To be continued...