An Angel called Maman Zinat Joon

mamanquran
Originally uploaded by roya parsay.

An angel called maman zinat joon, ZINAT YAMOTAHARI MASSIHNIA.

My grand mother from my mother’s side was an angel to whoever met her. She was always smiling and kind and patient and with manners. She was wise, a poet(click on title and see one of her poems in her own handwriting), a musician, a singer, a religious woman at the same time. She was reading Quran every night, but could sing and play violin . I never saw her play violin, but she sang for us, specially shod khazan golshane ashenaii.. a famous song of the famous singer Badizade. He composed it in Germany, but what do you know Badizade and maman were cousins(pesar ameh,dokhtar daee).They sometimes looked alike. I once met Badizdeh and he said come and sit next to me, I want to hug the favorite of Zinat. I was her favorite person,sometimes like her children.

I lived with her and my grand pa for a year. They lived in shahbaz, south of Tehran and we lived in darros,north of Tehran. I lived there for a year and god knows why, and I had a surgery on my stomach at the age of 12, while attending Kasai school, 4^th grade, due to complication of my first operation at the age of 6 months!!.

I have to say my other grand pa AGhajoon bala, when I was 6 months old, to play with me, he threw me in the air and I just had milk and my intestinal twisted. I guess it was in Abadan. They oprated on me(Dr. Morshed) and did a sloppy job in stiches, had to re-operate that plus appendicies and hernia at the age of 12. I was always exempted from VARZESH(P.E) I was living with my grnad ma, and I guess parents were separated or father was in England.

I used to go to school with Mehri the daughter of Khale shokat. I remember maman making the best of food ever(no kidding) THE BEST. Now that mother is dead I can shout that, since mother made very good food, but nothing compared to Mamans. She was my mother and I loved her A LOT.

She used to sometime(every week ) walk with me to my school(KASAI) and then she would go to public bath and wait for me, after 2-2.5 hours, when my school was over, I would join her! I always was surprised as how can she spend 2 hrs in a bath. By the time I join she would have finished coloring her hair with rangohanna and knew about everybody around her. There was a corner with some water there and a lot of foam of soap. She would say , that woman sitting there is dumb,cant talk. This one lost her child, that one got divorced… and I wanted to wash myself fast and get out of there thou I like dthe part that we would immerse in khazineh, or a pool in the middle. I wonder why I never catch disease then and here we do sometimes. Anyway I always made fun of her staying in the bath.

There was my two uncles,daee Bijan and Daee Farhang, my grnad pa ,Aghajoon, and maman, khale shokat zari, and Mehri in that house( my other uncle daee Houshang was married and lived separate but close by). I was complaining as why she made gheimeh polo cause I did not like that food and she would quietly, kindly say o.k next time I won’t. Daee Farhang was always reading his pezeshki books to become a heart physician. I used to go read his books upside down. Daee Bijan was in his room and had a private phone. Their phone was black and rotary dial.?

Grand pa used to come home from Bazar(he had daftar vekalat 101 sabte ahval, which 101 translates to Ali in ABjad words), he was a lawyer in Kermanshah,. then he always had bags of fruit in his hand and he would shout ZIN ZIN DANG DANG(as her name was Zinat and he would make fun of it.) Maman would run to the door and say Agha please the neighbors can hear you. And he would repeat it every time. I loved their relationship). She would prepare her manghal and she used ghalyoon(hooka). Aghajoon used to tease me too and put all the stems of the peppers(small ones) on my knee and I would say aghajoon,don’t. and he would laugh and say khomshele,khomshele(abbreviation of pretty). How I miss those kind days.

I have to describe their house.

There was a long hallway(dalan) as you would walk from the street into the house. Then a hayat with a little hoze in the middle. A bathroom at the end of this yard(winters were torture to go to the bathroom!) and then some steps up to go to the rooms, and some down to go to basement(zirzamin) and kitchen(ashpazkhoone). The basement steps would pass a green house(golkhoone) with yas plants and some kabootar(pigeons). Then a room to the right,one in front of you and to the left was kitchen. There was no need for any air conditioning as this was very cool.

I have to describe the kitchen,as you walked in there was an area to the right with some holes in the wall one step up(they stored zoghal or coal in there. In front of you would be some stoves(the blue ones working with naft) that used oil and out of those primitive stoves the best of foods would come out. To the left was a place to wash your hand like a sink but made out of stone. Everything was dark there. And also 2 steps down was another faucet that you could wash your hands or feet there too. Daee Bijan always liked to go there.

Every morning Maman and Khale shokat would go in the kitchen 3 floors down and come out at noon with a delicious food. Upstairs was another 2 level, on first level was 3 rooms, and in the middle was a samovar always burning. On the right side was aghajoon’s room and on the left was maman’s room and I . THERE WAS A CURTAIN BETWEEN THESE ROOMS,NO DOOR! behind the samovar area was a small room and khale shokat,zari and Mehri lived there. I always slept on the bed, never on the floor and I guess Maman stayed there on the floor for the year I lived with them, such a contrast when I would go to our house in shemiran on weekends. Then on the top floor was 3 more rooms,first one daee Farhang, second daee Bijan and the other one the famouse otaghe mehmoon khooneh(the guest room). Every house in Iran had a guest room and it was the most beautiful, largest room in the house but no one would EVER go in there,maybe once a year for new year. But since going upstairs was difficult Nobody in that house EVER had a party in that room. Now that I think about it, why didn’t they let me have it or Mehri could have it. I remember a beautiful chandelier was hanging in the middle and couches were yellow.

O.K. I have not said much about Maman yet, I have a LOT to say later. I get tired these days and took me some days to write this so my next posting would be the rest of the story....