1 - Dorud and Nahavand, 1956–1966

Summary

The Pain of Ghorbat

I was contemplating the soft strands of hair framing my mother's face when my eyes fell upon her searching gaze. She had called me to the living room, where she sat resting upon a lounge chair, and gently pulled me close to her. She drew my head to her chest as I sat beside her, those same strands of hair now grazing my head, and whispered sorrowfully, “My dear (azizam), as it happens, we live in ghorbat now, but we have roots in a place where people are brave and generous … They live a truly joyous life. They love and help each other endlessly. They are a happy people.”

It was around this time that I, only a pre-school-aged child of four or five years old, became aware that whenever my mother slipped into a passing depression, whether because of a squabble with my father, the tiresome habits of her friends and neighbors, or just dismay with the world at large, she would return to this word—ghorbat—and pronounce: “I have the pain of ghorbat (strangeness) [dardi-ye ghorbat daram].” What, I wondered, was the source of this pain that so profoundly and frequently gripped my mother? Ghorbat appeared to capture a feeling of solitude among strangers, the sense that life had unfairly estranged her from all that was familiar to her. My mother had, after all, left her family home in Nahavand to be with my father and would let no one forget this. Perhaps life had been cruel to her, I wondered, or perhaps she simply longed for her hometown and family. The refrain was so routine, such a part of her character, that I came to spend considerable time contemplating the curious idea of ghorbat and trying to imagine a life for my mother outside of it. Little did I know then that I would spend my life in ghorbat too, in places unfathomably remote to her.

Adding to my confusion about the meaning of ghorbat was the fact that my mother would invoke it not only when she was sullen but when she was feeling sentimental too. On these occasions, ghorbat captured nostalgia for her roots. Although I understood this, my mother's invocation of the word still perplexed me. Why must she live as a stranger among our neighbors?