19 Hours Until Nowrūz

(illustration by Mark Todd for NY Times)

I looked into the calendar: 19 hours until Nowrūz, right now! نوروز, the beginning of the Iranian New Year. Says Porochista Khakpour, as long as there is Spring, there is Nowrūz. Porochista Khakpour came to US with her parents at the beginning of the 1980's. She was four years old, and the Wienerschnitzel proved very quickly an irresistible attraction for the kid. It was not the Wiener Schnitzel, no, it was just that, the Wienerschnitzel, a fast-food chain in LA with hot-dogs and coke. American experience works always against your identity, shaping a new one. There is a moment you start to dream English, and a friend was telling me of the moment she started to keep her notebook in English, it had begun to be more at ease than to continue it in Romanian.

So the Nowrūz faded more and more throughout the years for the girl who had arrived on Californian soil at the beginning of the 1980's. It happened though what happens with many immigrants: at a certain point she started to miss the lost identity, to look back and to discover beauties and wonders.

Porochista Khakpour is now an established novelist, the author of Sons and Other Inflammable Objects. There is an op-ed by her in today's NY Times, where she's telling about the long journey from her roots to the Wienerschnitzel and slowly back again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opinion/20khakpour.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

You should also read her blog.

19 Hours till Nowrūz. A movie by Panahi comes to my mind, The White Balloon, it takes place just hours before Nowrūz, and it is flooded by a fairy tale atmosphere, as this is what's about with this fest, it has the magic of a Persian fairy tale.

نوروز مبارک! Happy Nowrūz to you all!

(Iranian Film and Poetry)