Sohrab Quotes

One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.

چرخ یک گاری در حسرت واماندن اسب اسب در حسرت خوابیدن گاریچی مرد گاریچی در حسرت مرگ

چرا گرفته دلت مثل آنکه تنهایی چقدر هم تنها خیال می کنم دچار آن رگ پنهان رنگ ها هستی دچار یعنی عاشق

Everyone wants you here. We have a saying in Farsi. It translates ‘your place was empty.’ We say it when we miss somebody." I sniffed. "Your place was empty before. But this is your family. You belong here.

And one more thing...You will never again refer to him as 'Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab.

Suicide isn't the only way you can lose someone to depression.

Was there happiness at the end [of the movie], they wanted to know. If someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab, and me ends with happiness, I wouldn't know what to say. Does anybody's? After all, life is not a Hindi movie. Zendagi migzara, Afghans like to say: Life goes on, undmindful of beginning, en, kamyab, nah-kam, crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis.

خوشا به حال گیاهان که عاشق نورند و دست منبسط نور روی شانه آنهاست همیشه فاصله ای هست همیشه فاصله ای هست دچار باید بود وگرنه زمزمه حیرت میان دو حرف حرام خواهد شد

زندگی سوت قطاریست که در خواب پلی می پیچد.

انتظاری نوسان داشت نگاهی در راه مانده بود و صدایی در تنهایی می گریست

نفس آدم ها سر به سر افسردست روزگاریست در این گوشه بژمرده هوا هر نشاطی مردست

The thing is, I never had a friend like Sohrab before. One who understood me without even trying. Who knew what it was like to be stuck on the outside because of one little thing that set you apart.

Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

Ghorbanat beram is one of those perfect Farsi phrases you can’t quite translate into English. The closest thing is: I would give my life for yours. Sometimes it was just hyperbole. But for Sohrab, it was literal. And it was literal for me too. That is what it means to have a best friend.

But the wall weren't just inside of him. They were between us. I didn't know how to breach them.

It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.

You don’t care what anyone thinks. You know?” My ears burned. “I care what everyone thinks, Sohrab.” “No you don’t. Not really. You don’t try to change yourself. You know who you are.” He bumped shoulders with me. “I wish I was like that. I always try to be what my mom needs. What my amou needs. What you need. But you are the opposite. You are happy with who you are.” I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s really me. You’ve never seen what it’s like back home. How everyone treats me.” “They don’t know you, Darioush.” Sohrab grabbed my shoulder. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.” “I wish you could see yourself too.” I swallowed. “You’re the only person who never wanted me to change.

If you are looking for me I am beyond nowhere [ … ] Beyond nowhere there is a place desire opens like an umbrella, breeze like thirst sinks deep into the leaves. Bells of rain carol fresh watery tunes about how lonely humans are here where the shadows of tree trunks stream into endlessness. If you are looking for me, come soft and quietly, lest you crack the glass heart that cups my loneliness.

It does not matter where I am. The sky is always mine. Windows, ideas, air, love, earth, all mine. Why does it matter if sometimes, the mushrooms of nostalgia grow?

How was it?' 'It was...' I didn't know what to say. How could I explain Mamou and Babou and Sohrab and football and the rooftop to someone who had never experienced them? How could I talk about them when I still felt the ache?

کار ما نیست شناسایی راز گل سرخ کار ما شاید این است که در افسون گل سرخ شناور باشیم کار ما شاید این است که میان گل نیلوفر و قرن پی آواز حقیقت بدویم

… one must rise And walk along the stretch of time, Look at the flowers, hear the enigma. One must run until the end of being … One must sit close to the unfolding, Some place between rapture and illumination.

دنگ...، دنگ ... ساعت گيج زمان در شب عمر مي زند پي در پي زنگ. زهر اين فكر كه اين دم گذر است مي شود نقش به ديوار رگ هستي من. لحظه ام پر شده از لذت يا به زنگار غمي آلوده است. ليك چون بايد اين دم گذرد، پس اگر مي گريم گريه ام بي ثمر است. و اگر مي خندم خنده ام بيهوده است. دنگ...، دنگ .... لحظه ها مي گذرد. آنچه بگذشت ، نمي آيد باز. قصه اي هست كه هرگز ديگر نتواند شد آغاز. مثل اين است كه يك پرسش بي پاسخ بر لب سر زمان ماسيده است. تند برمي خيزم تا به ديوار همين لحظه كه در آن همه چيز رنگ لذت دارد ، آويزم، آنچه مي ماند از اين جهد به جاي : خنده لحظه پنهان شده از چشمانم. و آنچه بر پيكر او مي ماند: نقش انگشتانم. دنگ... فرصتي از كف رفت. قصه اي گشت تمام. لحظه بايد پي لحظه گذرد تا كه جان گيرد در فكر دوام، اين دوامي كه درون رگ من ريخته زهر، وا رهاينده از انديشه من رشته حال وز رهي دور و دراز داده پيوندم با فكر زوال. پرده اي مي گذرد، پرده اي مي آيد: مي رود نقش پي نقش دگر، رنگ مي لغزد بر رنگ. ساعت گيج زمان در شب عمر مي زند پي در پي زنگ : دنگ...، دنگ .... دنگ...

It's just hard," I said. "Everyone knows everyone. And everyone speaks Farsi. And everyone knows the dances. And I..." ..."Darioush." Sohrab bumped my shoulder again. "No one wants me here." "Everyone wants you here. We have a saying in Farsi. It translates to 'your place was empty'. We say it when we miss somebody." I sniffed. "Your place was empty before. But this is your family. You belong here.

I knew soccer/non-American football jerseys weren't cheap. Sohrab could have used that money on some new cleats for himself, but he had gotten me the jersey instead. "Are you okay, Darioush?" "Yeah. Yeah." I blinked some more. "It's just really, really nice." It made me feel like I belonged.

I want to know: Why is a horse noble and the dove beloved but no one keeps a pet vulture in a gilded cage. Why is the humble clover trodden upon rather than the red tulip. I want to see anew and wash the words of the world in wind and rain.

آب در یک قدمیست , روشنی را بچشیم ..

This was another taarof: Sohrab giving me his nicer cleats. And invoking my being a guest was one of the strongest strategies you could employ in taarof.

But even as I laughed, I thought about how Mamou and Mrs. Rezaei and Sohrab had danced this dance together before. How they had celebrated Nowruz together before. How Mamou had kissed Sohrab on both cheeks and invited him inside for tea before. More times than anyone could count. My chest imploded. Just a little bit. I hated how Sohrab had a larger share of my grandmother's life than I did.

studying at the Indian Institute of Technology. ‘Sohrab

You can know things without them being said out loud. I knew Sohrab and I were going to be friends for life. Sometimes you can just tell that kind of thing.

...back home, all Persians- even Fractional Persians like me and Laleh- were united in our Persian-ness... But here, surrounded by Persians, Sohrab was singled out for being Bahá'I.

¿Cuánto tiempo? - me preguntó Sohrab. -No lo sé. Un poco. Sohrab se encogió de hombros y sonrió, una sonrisa más ancha aquella vez. -No me importa. Puedo esperar. Es como las manzanas verdes. -¿Las manzanas verdes? -Una vez, cuando era muy pequeño, trepé a un árbol y comí unas manzanas que aún estaban verdes. Se me hinchó el estómago y se me puso duro como un tambor. Mi madre me dijo que si hubiese esperado a que madurasen, no me habrían sentado mal. Así que ahora, cuando quiero algo de verdad, intento recordar lo que ella me dijo sobre las manzanas.

ديرگاهي است در اين تنهايي" رنگ خاموشي در طرح لب است بانگي از دور مرا مي خواند، ليك پاهايم در قير شب است. رخنه اي نيست در اين تاريكي در و ديوار به هم پيوسته سايه اي لغزد اگر روي زمين "نقش وهمي است ز بندي رسته.

Full sun. Starlings flock, nasturtiums burst into blossom. And me, cracking open a pomegranate I think to myself, “If only the seeds of the heart could be so transparent,” when the juice spurts out and splashes into my eyes, vermilion tears trickling down. My mother bursts out laughing and Rana too.

Tonight A friendly breeze Will agitate roots of meanings. Wonder will flap its wings. Deep in the night, an insect Will gnaw At the green portion of solitude. Morning will fall Into the word of morning.

You know how it looks in the mornings in Yazd, when it's still a little foggy, and you can see things but they're kind of greyed out and blurry around the edges?" Sohrab nodded. "That's what it felt like for me. When it was bad. It was like I could make out the shape of life but I could never quite see it.

پس چه باید بکنم من که در لخت‌ترین موسم بی‌چهچه سال تشنه‌ی زمزمه‌ام؟

باید امشب چمدانی را که به اندازه تنهایی من جا دارد، بردارم وبه سمتی بروم که درختان حماسی پیداست، رو به آن وسعت بی‌واژه که همواره مرا می‌خواند.

Sohrab had no walls inside. I loved that about him.

...it was perfect. But it was bittersweet too. Because I was running out of time. I wished I could stay in Iran. I wished I could go to school with Sohrab, and play soccer/non-American football every day, though I supposed I would have to start calling it regular football. I wished I could have been born in Yazd. That I could have grown up with Sohrab and Asghar and even Ali-Reza and Hossein.

Closing Sohrab’s door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Sohrab Sepehri این تن، بی شب و روز پشت باغ سراشیب ارقام مثل اسطوره می خفت فکر من از شکاف تجرد به او دست می زد هوش من پشت چشمان او آب می شد روی پیشانی مطلق او وقت از دست می رفت پشت شمشاد ها کاغذ جمعه ها را انس اندازه ها پاره می کرد این حراج صداقت مثل یک شاخه تمر هندی در میان من و تلخی شنبه ها سایه می ریخت یا شبیه هجومی لطیف، قلعه ترس های مرا می گرفت دست او مثل یک امتداد فراغت در کنار تکالیف من محو می شد واقعیت کجا تازه تر بود؟ من که مجذوب یک حجم بی درد بودم گاه در سینی فقر خانه میوه های فروزان الهام را دیده بودم در نزول زبان، خوشه های تکلم صدادارتر بود در فساد گل و گوشت نبض احساس من تند می شد از پریشانی اطلسی ها روی وجدان من جذبه می ریخت شبنم ابتکار حیات روی خاشاک برق می زد یک نفر باید از این حضور شکیبا با سفر های تدریجی باغ چیزی بگوید یک نفر باید این حجم کم را بفهمد دست او را برای تپش های اطراف معنی کند قطره ای وقت روی این صورت بی مخاطب بپاشد یک نفر باید این نقطه محض را در مدار شعور عناصر بگرداند یک نفر باید از پشت درهای روشن بیاید گوش کن یک نفر می دود روی پلک حوادث کودکی رو به این سمت می آید... هشت کتاب / دفتر "ما هیچ ما نگاه" / شعر "بی روزها عروسک

And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac and I brought Hassan's son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.

What unites the identitarians who lord over the art world is the belief that art is primarily, even solely, a political enterprise. That was also the premise of Socialist Realism, the theory and style of art promoted in the former Soviet Union. One could fairly contend that identitarian art is something like our era’s version of Socialist Realism.

Night's bewitching hand Slams the door- in my face and that of sorrow. No matter how hard I try, It only mocks me. All that I designed in daytime, Night came and smeared with smoke. All that I imagined at night, Day came and erased outright.

I reached for something else to say, but I came up blank. Sohrab didn't seem to mind, though. It was a comfortable silence between us. Not awkward at all. I liked that I could be silent with Sohrab. That's how I knew we really were going to be friends

I felt so helpless. Sohrab was hurting and there was nothing I could do. Nothing except sit there and be his friend. But maybe that was enough. Because Sohrab knew it was okay to cry in front of me. He knew I wouldn't tell him not to have feelings. He felt safe with me.

How could I permit my conversion to be reduced to politics and identity, when in fact it had been sparked by the opposite idea: that there is such a thing as truth, truth that is eternal and universal and isn’t circumscribed by politics, history, genetics, language, geography, or identity?

At the first light of the dawn the loner knight asked: "Do you happen to know- the abode of The Beloved?" The skies went silent, save their mournful clouds, save their falling stars. The pilgrim gave up his glowing twig- to the gloom of the sands- and replied: “Don’t you see that poplar tree? Well, right before the tree, There is a lane that you’ll reckon, I deem. For it is greener than a heavenly dream, For it is generously shaded- with the deep blue’s of love. Well, if you See! So walk down that lane, You’ll arrive to the garden of sense; Turn to the direction of the loner lake; Listen to the genial hymn of leaves; Watch the eternal fountain- that flows from the spring of ancient myths- till you fade away- In a plain fear. When a rigid noise- Clatters into the fluid intimacy of the space, you'll find a child- on the top of a tree- next to the nest of owls- in hope of a golden egg. Well, if you See. You may be sure: The Child will show you the way. Well, If you just ask about- The Abode of The Beloved.

Say what you will about the Soviet critics, at least they were erudite. Not so with today’s identitarian critics, who care little for art history and aesthetics. What they are blessed with is lots of opinions about everything – all of which invariably revolve around race, gender and class, power and privilege.

The general public long ago stopped looking for beauty in high culture. But it still has TV and the movies....you are far more likely to find genuinely mesmerising images and real beauty in big-budget Hollywood movies -- think of, say, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar or his Dark Knight Trilogy -- than in any European art-house

This last is identitarian art’s greatest injustice against the culture: since social power dynamics and collective identity are all that such art knows and cares about, its practitioners can’t grapple with individuality, with things of the soul, with the inner life – the very things that draw most of us to art in the first place.

But the walls weren't just inside of him. They were between us. I didn't know how to breach them.

I wanted to pull him close, hold him, tell him the world had been unkind to him, not the other way around.

من خیلی‌ها را شناخته‌ام که از دست شعر به پلیس شکایت کرده‌اند.

Quiet is peace. Tranquillity. Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life. Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it. Sohrab’s silence wasn’t the self-imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.

I longed for some cosmic and moral absolutes. Yet the only absolute command that my father handed down to me was: “Be yourself.” It was maddening. Who was this “self” dwelling inside me, to whom I owed such fidelity? My father wouldn’t say.

Let’s walk to the beach Let’s cast the net in the water And catch freshness from water Let’s pick up a pebble from the ground Feel the weight of existence Let’s not abuse moonshine if we suffer from fever (Occasionally I have observed the moon descending during fever And reaching the hand of the roof of heaven I have noticed the goldfinch singing better Sometimes the wound beneath my foot Has taught the ups and downs of earth Sometimes in my sickbed the dimension of the rose has multiplied And the diameter of orange has increased, the radius of lantern too)

liberal culture insists there is something in each of us, something unique and immutable, that can’t be reduced to group identities such as race, nationality, gender, sexuality – in short, to collectivity. And great art has long made it its business to articulate that irreducible something. Think

For ever so long, on a branch of this willow Sits a bird, the colour of a riddle. Attuned to him no sound, no colour. Totally alone, like me, in this land. [...] The bird's tale comes straight from the heart: What fails to arrive is idle fancy. His are ties with cities lost: The riddle bird is a stranger in this land.

I looked at the photo. "Your father was a man torn between two halves," Rahim Khan had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba's guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son. I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

I have come to believe that the very modes of life and thinking that strike most people in the West as antiquated or 'limiting' can liberate us, while the Western dream of autonomy and choice without limits is, in fact, a prison; that the quest to define ourselves on our own is a kind of El Dorado, driving to madness the many who seek after it; that for our best, highest selves to soar, other parts of us must be tied down, enclosed, limited, bound.

When I wake, it seems a little less hot than usual, so I’m worried I have a fever until light flashes behind the curtains and the sound of a detonation rolls in with a force that makes the windows rattle. As I step outside with a plastic bag over my cast, a stiff breeze pulls my hair away from my face, and I see the pregnant clouds of the monsoon hanging low over the city. The rains have finally decided to come. I sit down on the lawn, resting my back against the wall of the house, and light an aitch I’ve waited a long time to smoke. Suddenly the air is still and the trees are silent, and I can hear laughter from my neighbor’s servant quarters. A bicycle bell sounds in the street, reminding me of the green Sohrab I had as a child. Then the wind returns, bringing the smell of wet soil and a pair of orange parrots that swoop down to take shelter in the lower branches of the banyan tree, where they glow in the shadows.

Liberal, free-market societies can, and do, grant visibility and representation to the hitherto invisible and unrepresented, in other words, without radically changing the social structure. Marginal groups and peripheral movements rise up; they win legal emancipation and cultural acceptance; and then they are absorbed into the fabric of liberalism. At its best – or worst, depending on your outlook – liberal capitalism can defang even its most ardent enemies, rendering them into harmless kitsch like so many Che Guevara T-shirts.

It is almost inconceivable that so many filmmakers could think of nothing -- be inspired by nothing -- nothing, nothing, nothing -- but the politics of representation, 'performitivity', gender, race, queer theory etc. There must be other subjects, in the world outside or in their inner lives, which belong on the silver (or digital) screen. This degree of conformity is unsettling. It should alarm cultural elites rather than comfort them. Yet the art world's ideological atmosphere is so thick and pervasive that those inside of it don't even realise it as the air they breathe." "Forgive me, I forgot to mention the other permissible topic: 'consumptive capitalism', that oppressive economic system which creates vast sums of taxable wealth, which in turn allows the UK government to fund even this nonsense.

Guardai Sohrab. Un angolo della sua bocca si era impercettibilmente sollevato. Un sorriso. Abbozzato, ma pur sempre un sorriso. Dietro di noi si era già formata una mischia urlante di ragazzini, pronti a dare la caccia all'aquilone verde che ondeggiava alla deriva. Un attimo, e il sorriso era già scomparso. Ma c'era stato. L'avevo visto. «Vuoi che dia la caccia all'aquilone?» Vidi il piccolo pomo d'Adamo di Sohrab salire e scendere come per deglutire. Il vento gli scompigliava i capelli. Mi parve di vederlo annuire. «Per te questo e altro» dissi senza rendermene conto. Poi mi voltai e mi misi a correre. Era solo un sorriso, niente di più. Le cose rimanevano quelle che erano. Solo un sorriso. Una piccola cosa. Una fogliolina in un bosco che trema al battito d'ali di un uccello spaventato. Ma io l'ho accolto. A braccia aperte. Perché la primavera scioglie la neve fiocco dopo fiocco e forse io ero stato testimone dello sciogliersi del primo fiocco. Correvo. Ero un uomo adulto che correva con uno sciame di bambini vocianti. Ma non mi importava. Correvo con il vento che mi soffiava in viso e sulle labbra un sorriso ampio come la valle del Panjsher. Correvo.

Çatımızın arkası ve tepesindeki esinti insaniydi. Ferahtı. Havadardı. Asla unutmamak gerekir ki çatı, “Yağmur ve güneşten korunmaya muhtaç olan” insan için bir kurtuluştur. Çatıda her zaman çıplak ayakla olurdum. Çıplak ayaklı olmak, kaybettiğim bir nimet. Ayakkabı, iniş’i inkar yolunda yürüyen insanın telaşından geriye kalan şeydir. Cennetten uzak kalışın doğurduğu hüznün temsilidir.

Okul, yaşlı renk hayaletimin yüzüne atılmış bir tırmıktı. Okul, uykularımı bölüyordu. Namazımı bozuyordu. Okul, oyuncağımı incitmişti. Okula başladığım günü asla unutamam: Beni kovalamaca oyununun ortasından aldılar ve okul kâbusuna sürüklediler.

Be Vast, Solitary, Down to Earth and Firm

He didn’t so much live with us as occupy space. And precious little of it. Sometimes, at the market, or in the park, I’d notice how other people hardly seemed to even see him, like he wasn’t there at all. I’d look up from a book and realize Sohrab had entered the room, had sat across from me, and I hadn’t noticed. He walked like he was afraid to leave behind footprints. He moved as if not to stir the air around him. Mostly, he slept.

When culture only rewards the assertion of group identity (black, female, queer etc.), the silent majority will want its slice of the identitarian pie. They can do identity politics, too; it's called white nationalism.

Bilo bi pogrešno reći da je Sohrab bio tih. Tišina je mir. Tišina je okretanje dugmeta za glasnoću života. Muk je pritiskivanje dugmeta za isključivanje. Gašenje. Svega.

It would be erroneous to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquillity. Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life. Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it.

وسیع باش، و تنها، و سر به زیر، و سخت.

لبریز شو تا سرشاری‌ات به هر سو رو کند. صدایی تو را می‌خواند، روانه شو. سرمشق خودت باش. با چشمان خودت ببین. با یافته خویش بِزی. در خود فرو شو تا به دیگران نزدیک شوی، پیک خود باش. پیام خودت را باز گوی. میوه از باغ درون بچین. شاخه ها چنان بارور بینی که سبدها آرزو کنی و زنبیل تو را گرانباریِ شاخه‌ای بس خواهد بود ...

غذایی که من می‌پزم خوشمزه می‌شود به شرطی که چاشنی آن نمک باشد و فلفل و یک قاشق اغماض.

نپرسیم و با خود بمانیم. و درونِ خویش را آب پاشی کنیم. و در آسمانِ خود بتابیم. و خویشتن را پهنا دهیم. و اگر تنهایی از نفس افتاد، در بگشاییم. و یکدیگر را صدا بزنیم.

من هزارها گرسنه در خاک هند دیده‌ام و هیچ وقت از گرسنگی حرف نزده‌ام. نه، هیچ وقت. ولی هر وقت رفته‌ام از گلی حرف بزنم دهانم گس شده است. گرسنگی هندی سَبک دهانم را عوض کرده است و من دِین ِخود را ادا کرده‌ام.

El silencio de Sohrab no era el silencio que alguien se impone a sí mismo por determinadas convicciones, ni el de los manifestantes que reivindican su causa sin pronunciar palabra. Era el silencio de quien se ha refugiado en un escondrijo oscuro, de quien se ha hecho un ovillo y se ha ocultado.

Si chinò sul vasetto di fiori al centro del tavolo, annusò il profumo dei narcisi. – Perché non sei sposato? Sohrab fece una smorfia. – Non si è presentata l’occasione. Lei si mise a giocare con la saliera. – In primo luogo ho pensato che c’erano delle cose più importanti da fare, poi che dovevo sposare una donna con cui parlare di argomenti seri. Ci ho messo del tempo a capire che non ci sono argomenti più importanti del colore delle pareti, della sistemazione dei mobili, della posizione dei quadri, della scelta di cosa mangiare a pranzo o a cena, e che bisognava poter ridere insieme di tutto questo.

Sohrab eagerly taking the bit as he sensed that he might be able to kick people in his near future (Bloodthirsty? Or just wanting more apples?).

Ik deed Sohrabs deur dicht en vroeg me af of vergiffenis op die manier opbloeit: niet met het trompetgeschal van een openbaring, maar met de pijn die zijn boeltje pakt en midden in de nacht onaangekondigd wegglipt.

Vi que Farid miraba también, con su mano igualmente amputada colgando a un lado. Me acordé de los hijos de Wahid y... entonces comprendí una cosa: que no abandonaría Afganistán sin encontrar a Sohrab.

جای من نزدیک معلم بود. پشت میزش نشسته بود و ذکر میکرد. وجودش بطلان ذکر بود. آدمی بی رویا بود. پیدا بود زنجره را نمیفهمد، خطمی را نمیشناسد و قصه بلد نیست. میشد گفت هیچ وقت پرپرچه نداشته است. در حضور او خیالات من چروک میخورد. وقتی وارد کلاس میشد ما از اوج خیال میافتادیم. در تن خود حاضر میشدیم. پرهای ما ریخته بود. انگار سرنگون بودیم.

خطاط امروز، خط نویس است. خوش نویس نیست. خوش نویس دیروز مجذوب و اهل حال بود. فانی و درویش بود. از خود گذشته بود. زمانه ی ما درویش ندارد. فانی که هیچ. خوش نویس دیروز از یار و خویش و رفیق میبرید. و گوشه ی انزوا نشیمن میکرد. و چون آشنای دل بود، میدانست که صفای خط از صفای دل است. پس با نفس بد جدل میکرد. خط نویس امروز طاقت محنت ندارد. با خوش نویس دیروز شق به مشق بود. و این شوق آنقدر بود که شبهای تابستان از اول شب تا صباح در مهتاب نشسته مشق جلی میکرد. خط نویس این روزگار را ریاضت برازنده نیست.

If he could not restore her to the status of a respectable woman, then Sohrab would make her into something else entirely, something hitherto unknown in their entire extended family, an educated woman, a professional woman.