Farah Seyed Abolghasem Transcript and Audio

Part 01

I am the last child in the family

a crowded family

I lost my father too soon,
when I was six

My father had a big garden,
It was for agriculture purposes

and there was a building inside it

But the production was kinda a lot
and they were distributed around

Beside this, he had an office job

working as an accountant in a bureau

My fondness of nature
started right then

All the images in mind
about my childhood are in that garden

one of them is a day,
when my father and I were walking in the garden

It was spring and all of the peach trees
were blooming

Everywhere was full of pink blossoms

with strange nice caressing aroma

at the ending edge of the garden
a wall was collapsed

I told my dad,
“The wall has collapsed”

“Repair it, otherwise
the kids would eat our peaches”

and my dad said, “Let them come and eat,
They eat their share”

“They can’t eat more,
doesn’t matter…”

Anf there were only blossoms
and no fruits but I was worried about future…

There was another time…
As I said it’s. all. about those days

There’s another memory which
is kinda sad

But it’s about there again

My brothers used to hunt
sparrows with slingshot

I was a thin, feeble child

and a doctor or my mom or grandma
have said that sparrows are nourishing.

Make a pottage with. fresh vegetables
and put the sparrows in

to be a nourishing food
for me

My brothers went to hunt
sparrows with slingshot

Looks like I’ve insisted
to go with them

and crying to go with them
and mom said to tag me along

We went together

and they gave me a mission
not to talk or cry. and just follow them

Whenever we shot a sparrow,

You should hold your skirt and
carry them over your lifted skirt

It was a terrible day for me

I wish I hadn’t gone with them

Cause they would have shot the sparrows

and ran to them and behead them
and throw the head aside

and put their body on my skirt

I was crying and walking behind them

I asked them to stop and not shoot them,
while I was crying, but…

I thought they’d listen,
but they. didn’t…

Cause it was a game to them,
they were just a couple of boys

It was their age requirment

I got home with a skirt full
of dead sparrows, at last

Not knowing they are going to be
my own food

I don’t remember

What happened nect

Either the pottage was made or not and
I ate it or not but…

It’s stuck on my mind

Birds came to stay in my works
in the future

They may have come from that day,
i don’t know

I think when I became six,
my chilhood ended

Cause I lost my father then and
It was really hard for me

Cause I loved my father very much

The image I remember from the last year of my father,
is him being sick

My father had chronic bronchitis
and lost his lungs little by little

I remember once,
My mother, father and I…

went for a check up and
taking picture of his torso

Doctor’s office was at Sheikh Hadi street

There was a big tree in
the yard…

Which was wrapped with plastic
strips from top to down

I remember asking my mother
why the tree was wrapped

and had been enclosed,
It would suffocate

My mother said
It was a banana tree

and was wrapped because of the cold weather
and would be free after the cold season

It was really strange for my,
both the shape of this big tree being wrapped

and the banana too.
Both were unattainable

I wanted to come back. when
it’s fruits were ripe

and the doctor would give me
a banana

but years later,
when I grew up…

I understood, the banana tree
which was wrapped and was getting suffocated

and father who was not
able to breath in those days

made me feel the same feeling

How these two picture
were the same and had the same meaning

and are both stuck in my mind

One day after that,
when my father was really sick

He was at the hospital

I went to see him,
being six and first class in the school

I saw there was an oxygen tent
and my father was lying beneath it

Just like the tree,
and he couldn’t breath. anymore

Then I went to first year of school

One of my classmates said,
why I’m so sad?

She wanted me to. play with others,
ride a carousel

I said no,
my father is sick and in a hospital

She. said it’s ok.
He is. gonna be allright

I asked, reall?
Is he gonna be well?

Said her father had been sick
and became well too

Then I took het hand
and believed her

In the afternoon when
I got back home…

I felt that the mood in
the home has completely changed

Everyone was wearing black. and crying.
My aunt, mom and everyone else…

That day I understood that
life is a game of carousel

Other things. happen too

It feels like in that day
some one took my hand

and brought me to world of grown ups

From that day I learned to not let
my mom know that I understand

Whenever she started crying,
I made myself busy playing with toys

and I wouldn’t show that
I understand what had. happened

and for years I’ve played
this role

It was really hard for me
and now I understand it was a terrible thing to do

I carried a burden
which was too much for me

It was too much for my age,
I had to shoe normal reaction

I had to. cry, I had to say
whom I was missing

I was always running away
from this fact

I acted like I don’t understand,
or I don’t care and acted like a child

but deep inside
I really missed him

and I was really sad about
the fact that I can’t see my dad ever again

and it was a real sad feeling,
that I was a child without father

but other kids had fathers.
This was really hurtful but I wouldn’t say anything

And soon I confronted the consequences.
This much bottling up got the hold of me

Fortunately I discovered
two worlds since childhood

Which are with me still

Reading…
and writing

of course, later on,
writing got mixed with painting and the…

The writing has retreated
and painting overcame

The writing still exists
beside the painting but…

It’s fading

I wrote… as soon as I learned
how to read, started to write

I think I was in third grade
when. I wrote my first story

and painted the other page

It continued till I’ve
made a small library in my room

and I was lending my books
to neighbours kids

In the summer,
instead of a small subscription fee

and I made a handwritten form

The would’ve burrow the books,
read and return them by the end of each week

little by little I asked them to
add their own books

to estalish a booming library

My first paying job…

was this very lending the books

I would’ve buy more books
with the subscription fees

another. thing that made my mother angry
with me by doing so

and saying I’m ruining their
reputation, and was ashamed of

It was…

with the help of my brother

who was seven years older then me

we made kites and sold them
to kids in the summer

At that time, there were extracurricular activities in the schools

painting, wall newspaper, music, dance…

hymns and collective songs

I was both in painting and theatre group
and journalism. too

little by litte,
painting started to be…

more serious.
Before that it was just about…

geographic maps or…

science home works…

which were very easy for me
and always did good

They mostly came out
interesting and teacher thought I copied them

Which I’d prove them wrong
by doing them instantly

In the middle school it became more

Cause we had sciene and we should’ve
painted the plants, animals…

reptiles and birds which made
my science notebook very colorful

I used to pait them for my classmates too

Untill I painted my first oil painting
in the painting class of my middle school

Participated in some of painting
competitions pf schools

and kept writing stories, poems, …

with painting together…

moved in parallel lines