Dreams of a Lost Youth

By Esfandiar Sarfaraz

Dreams of a Lost Youth describes the story of the lives of several young passionate students, a playboy; a poet; four students with different ideologies; and a science student in Tehran, Iran, before and after the revolution that toppled the Shah in 1979. It describes how they joined these various groups that opposed the Shah's dictatorship and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Esfandiar Sarfaraz
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088082898

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Dreams of a Lost Youth

By

Esfandiar Sarfaraz

Copyright © 2022

Esfandiar Sarfaraz

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopy, recording, scanning, and methods not invented or in common use at the time of this publication, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing 2021

ISBN: 978-1-0880-8290-4

Table of contents

My Night Dreams (Visions from my Past)

Chapter One Summertime in Darab 1961

Chapter Two Tehran, August 1970

Chapter Three Apartment in Tehran

Chapter Four National University

Chapter Five Meeting with Sara and Reza

Chapter Six Witness to A Rape

Chapter Seven First Meeting with Political Group

Chapter Eight Meeting with Afsaneh, The History Teacher

Chapter Nine The Sixteenth Day of The Month Of Azar

Chapter Ten Guerilla Warfare

Chapter Eleven Going Back to Darab

Chapter Twelve Kourosh in Captivity

Chapter Thirteen My Meeting with Nemat’s Mother

Chapter Fourteen an Incident in Koorosh Department Store

Chapter Fifteen And Finally The 1979 Revolution

Chapter Sixteen After the Revolution

Chapter Seventeen The Lives of Artists After the Revolution

Chapter Eighteen One City and One Prostitute

Chapter Nineteen Meeting with The Political Friends After The Revolution

Chapter Twenty Hostage Crisis

Chapter Twenty-One Political Groups and The Power Struggle

Chapter Twenty-Two Schools After the Revolution

Chapter Twenty-Three Escaping to Moscow

Chapter Twenty-Four Khavaran-Iranian Holocausts

Chapter Twenty-Five My Last Night’s Dream

My Night Dreams

(Visions from my Past)

Every night for many years, visions from my past have haunted me in my dreams. These visions vary, but they all range from my earliest childhood to my tumultuous coming of age years during the 1970s in the country of my birth, Iran. Maybe because they revolve around my youth, and now I am old and yearn for those days deeply. Or perhaps, it is because I still feel like an exile in my adopted country, despite my citizenship and living here for the past thirty years.

All the people who impacted my youth appear to me exactly the way I remember them. They seem so real that I try to reach out and touch them, but I am never able. Instead, I just soak up their presence as I relive the stages of my youth - from an early memory, a good one, to the heated political events throughout my college years. Those latter days recur the most frequently. It is not unfathomable why they dominate my memories. Whether I was distributing pamphlets or having political discussions with my friend where a picture of Che Guevara hung next to one of Mao Tes-Tung, Linin, and Stalin. These events are directly related to my current life. But no matter what time I find myself in, there is always one constant. At six o’clock every morning, my dearly departed mother’s voice calls out to me.

Babak Jan, it is late! It is time to go to school. Your breakfast is ready. Come on, you must wake up!

I rose myself from bed at her last command. Except, of course, there is no steaming hot breakfast waiting for me. I must prepare my own.

At my job as a physicist, I am a workaholic. No matter what is asked of me, I will complete the task. I am willing to accept any and all responsibility - from the trivial to the most challenging. My work time is filled with activity and no time for personal reflection.

But at night, after returning home from a long day at work, I could not resist dwelling upon my dreams of the past. At first, there was a slight thrill in reveling in them, but eventually, it grew bittersweet. As much joy as I experienced in my youth, I knew the unfortunate tragedy that culminated in it. So, I began drinking wine in the evenings to calm myself and make sleeping easier.

After that, the dreams of all those remembered characters return, and the setting of those stages’ days become alive. As if I am in a theater, sometimes I am the audience, and sometimes I am an actor, and in the near end, at dawn, I feel pain in my heart and chest, and almost physical type of depression appears.

Then something inside of me told me to write about my dreams. I did just that. Then I began to feel better, so I kept writing until I had written the story of my youth. Whatever the reason, I also found the solace I was seeking. The dreams of my past will return on occasion, but they are no longer a struggle for me. I embrace them as an early chapter in my ever-evolving yet reflective life.

The following is a story about a certain Iranian generation whose aims were to bring a balance between their emotions and the socioeconomic and political issues of their time.

Chapter One

Summertime in Darab 1961

My name is Babak, and I was born in a small town, Darab, located approximately 240 kilometers South of Shiraz, the capital of Fars Province. It is situated between Shiraz and Bander Abbas, which is another 341 kilometers southeast of Darab. At the time of my childhood, Darab had four main streets and many side streets and alleys, but one could easily walk throughout the entire town within two to three hours. The population of Darab and its surrounding villages was around 35,000 back in 1961 when I was nine years old.

The area was most prominently known for its citrus fruit industry. But it did export other major agricultural products like cotton, wheat, and corn, along with watermelons, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

One dominating natural feature of the town was its tall date palms. They were ubiquitous throughout Darab, and I remember how much we all liked those tall date palms because they were so different from any other type of tree.

According to my history books in school, Ardashir I, the head of the Sasanian Empire (224 CE to 651 CE), had come from Darab back when it was called by its original name, Darabjard. One of the existing landmarks from that era is Naqsh-e Rustam, the portrait of King Shapour carved into the mountain rock by the bas-relief technique. King Shapour is on horseback, and a man is kneeling in front of his horse. The man is believed to be one of the Romans Emperors captured by Shapour in combat. At the foot of the mountain is a sizeable spring, which streams out into a large ditch. It creates a fresh, cool swimming pool for the local inhabitants and, furthermore, is a useful water source for the farms in the region.

My favorite pastime in the summer was swimming in the spring. Sometimes, many children were there. Not all of them would be swimming, though; some would wash themselves. This is a brief description of my beautiful and cherished Darab as I can recall it.

In the old days, before 1925 and the onset of the Pahlavi dynasty, my great-grandfather was the sheriff, Kalanter, in Darab. At that time, the government functioned according to a feudal system. This was the situation even after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution Mashrūteh (1907). The parliamentary procedure had not been implemented in small cities like Darab. However, in Tehran and other large cities where the implementation had taken place, the system had many ups and downs, which is a whole other subject not relevant to this story. One of the sheriff’s major duties was collecting taxes for the governor of the province. Another one was to provide an adequate army in case of war. The remainder of his responsibilities would resemble those of a typical mayor. A mullah trained in Qom, approved by the influential religious leaders in the king’s palace in Tehran, served as a judge for the Darabian citizens.

During my grandfather’s time, a Turkish tribe settled approximately 30 kilometers northwest of Darab. At the end of the Qajar Dynasty (1785 to 1925 AD), the central government was so weak that the cities entered a state of anarchy. The Turkish tribes were the cause of much disorder.

These tribes were more like mobile armies. They trained to be excellent marksmen and horse riders and ranged north, south, east, and west within the Fars Province. The lower sorts among them were usually bandits, too

There were many stories about the tribes’ invasions of Darab or the farmers’ crops, or they targeted those individuals who had complained and revealed their actions to the central government. The notion of horsemen galloping up to someone’s house with a thundering noise, seeking to kill a man who kept writing and complaining to the authorities for help against lawlessness, creates chills and terror in my mind.

Due to this insecure and unsafe situation, a need for a strong central government was obvious. This was true, not just in Darab or the Fars Province but throughout the entire country, where similar incidences of lawlessness were also rampant.

Reza Shah’s coup-d’état, supported by the British (1925), finally satisfied this need. The British also helped Reza Shah build a well-trained army to maintain his position. This new army finally brought security to the country. In a well-orchestrated plot, all of the Turkish chiefs were captured. They were all brought to Tehran. Those with brutal reputations were executed, and the others were jailed for a couple of years and then exiled.

My family always thought of Reza Shah as a leader who brought them security and prosperity. Though he was a dictator and did not foster democracy, they had their security, something they had not had for a long time.

Since my grand grandfather had been a sheriff, he motivated the next generation to keep the family tradition alive in Darab, i.e., to become members of the new parliament under the Shah. A parliamentary member would carry the same prestigious as the old sheriffs. However, the procedure for electing a parliament member was not democratic as had been the hoped-for objective of the Mashrotiate revolution (1907). Apparently, peace and security were the price for democracy. To function as a parliament member, they learned that they had to work within a totalitarian government. In other words, they needed to concede power to those members of the ruling families, such as the noble class of the Qajar dynasty, Ashrafzadeh, and to influential groups like the Free Masons. These exclusive factions were granted all the key government positions: from the prime minister down to the members of the cabinet and all the upper ranks in the army, such as generals and colonels.

Parliament members were supposed to be elected by the people, not chosen by the government. But this was not the situation during the rule of the Shahs. Reza Shah and his son, Mohammed Reza Shah, deceptively claimed that the elections were free and the objectives of the Parliamentary revolution (1907) were established in all the cities. The parliamentary elections were a pretend show of democracy, a game for amusing the people.

When I was nine years old, my father decided to become a member of parliament. The campaign activities and politics of the people once again became alive.

One night when my father was ten years old, his mother woke him and his younger brother and sister up in the middle of the night. She hugged and kissed them and said an emotional goodbye. She explained how she could not tolerate living in the house anymore and had to leave. She planned to go back to Shiraz, her native-born city, and to live with her own family. Then she revealed that their father had taken a new bride in the town as his wife. Having multiple wives at that time was socially acceptable, no matter how a woman may suffer from her rival wife, and indeed my grandmother could not tolerate a rival wife. At that moment, in another part of the city, a wedding celebration was being held.

Can’t you hear the sound of Naghareh’?" She asked her children in a trembling voice, preventing herself from crying.

(Naghareh was a windpipe musical instrument with a loud sound, which is used outside during weddings and ceremonies. One of the famous pieces played by this instrument was Love Dawn, Sahar Naz. It was played while positioned on a roof above a wedding suite, at dawn following a wedding night.)

However, leaving her life behind, especially her children was not easy; there were many reasons for the tears to stream down her face spontaneously. My father was shocked by her leaving and his own father’s decision, and he did not want her to go alone. He embraced her and insisted that he accompany her. No way would he let her go alone. My grandmother stared at him with tear-filled eyes, knowing she could not leave him. He was older than his two siblings. His mother agreed that he could go along with her to Shiraz, and that is where my father was raised.

I only heard that story once from my father. He became emotional and teary-eyed while telling it, and I did not ask him any further questions about it. But now I wish I did. I would have asked him what he was thinking at the time. Maybe he thought that he could be emotional support for his mother. Even though she was originally from Shiraz, she would almost be a stranger there since she had not seen her family for more than ten years.

What was in either one of their minds I could not fathom, but what I can state now from my current vantage point is that my grandmother’s decision, however painful for her, was a protest against injustice and discrimination. Regardless of what might lie ahead for her, she took a courageous step in her refusal to accept the humiliation of partaking in a traditional polygamous marriage. However, she could not go without taking part of her heart, her son, with her. And my father’s decision at that time came from his notion of being an elder son who had to prove his courage and ability to support his mother. It was unprecedented at the time in a male dominated society for any woman to do such, and it has always made her an admirable figure to me.

They left before sunrise while all Darab was asleep. My grandmother thought it wise to do so. This way, there was less chance for anyone to impede their journey. They slipped through the city bazaar to where it ended. Then turned down one dark alley, from there, they proceeded to another dark alley and then another until they reached a small tea shop at the entrance of the city. That is where the coach received passengers. Once safely on board, it took them three days to travel before they arrived at Shiraz.

It was a fateful decision for my father. His father’s remarriage had changed the course of his life forever. He moved to a bigger city with a better school, but he was now a stranger with no family roots. In Darab, his family was well-known as respected landowners. Now he lived in a small house with no servants and, more importantly, no father. That is what made him a different man from those he once lived within Darab, including his own brother and sister.

I never learned about my grandfather’s reaction to his wife and his eldest son’s decision to leave him. However, as time passed, he began sending them money on a monthly basis. This was how they could afford to rent a one-bedroom house in Shiraz. It has always pleased me to know that my grandfather never deserted them.

In Shiraz, my father went to school, though he was not treated as a Khan’s child as he had been in Darab. However, I believe that was actually an advantage. It prevented him from becoming spoiled and forced him to become independent. He never told me anything else about his childhood. I wish I had asked him. Maybe, there was not much else to tell since he became a man when he was ten years old.

After my father graduated from high school, he returned to Darab. He alerted his father about his arrival beforehand, so his father was waiting for him outside the city near a tea shop. At night, a small celebration was held in honor of my father’s arrival. All of the relatives were invited. My grandmother, on the other hand, remained true to her convictions and never returned to Darab until after my grandfather’s death.

Growing up in a large city and having a good education resulted in my father gaining an esteemed place amongst the Darabian people. Also, having had a rough childhood made him down-to-earth and humble. He would sit and talk with people of all ranks, whether they were peasants, shop owners, merchants, or land owners, and listen to them all with genuine sincerity. It was not long before his advice was sought about a wide range of issues, including medical treatment, legal matters, and even personal and family problems. These leadership qualities that he possessed made him a perfect candidate for parliamentary office. A large majority of the local people were in full support of his candidacy. These people were tired of seeing strangers, selected by the government, represent them.

The Darabian people were not aware that a stranger from another city could not be their representative in accordance with the law. But that is not so surprising considering that they did not even know what specific duties a Member of Parliament actually performed for them. Many people considered their representatives as nothing more than their connection to various special privileges. Some might request a driver’s license without taking an exam, others might request admission into a university for their son, who lacks the proper requirements, or others might request some form of leverage in a legal battle. Perhaps the most outrageous example would be the expectation that the representative’s home in Tehran or Shiraz be available to them during the summer or New Year’s vacation. All of these ridiculous notions were given to my father during his campaign whenever he asked people how he could help their lives.

One such Darabian complained bitterly to my father that the wife of a previous representative did not allow him to stay in their home while he dealt with a court problem in Tehran. My father was speechless and shrugged his shoulders. Only a handful of people understood what a representative must do for people in the larger sense. Overall, this indicated the general misunderstanding held among the people about how democracy worked. It is a perfect indicator of the lack of education available in the small cities and villages at the time.

My father built a large two-story house on a great deal of property he inherited from my grandfather. The house was situated on one side of the property. On the opposite side, there was a large pool surrounded by rows of oranges and lemon trees. Between the house, pool, and trees, the land resembled a huge garden. Both tiled and brick paths where walkways were scattered throughout the area. A lengthy, tiled walkway stretched from the house to the wrought iron entrance gate to the property.

Anytime I felt restless as a child, I would go up to the roof of the house and glance out over the other rooftops. Almost the entire city was in full view to the west. The entrance to the city and the imposing mountain, Tang Kato, was to the east. At the foot of that mountain, there was a lush, gigantic garden named Parvin’s Garden. It used to be a weekend getaway place for the Khans. Since the garden was near the mountain, it was much cooler in temperature than the city. My family used to go there during the New Year’s vacation. I remember, one day, my father pointed up at the mountain and told me that if he became Darab’s representative in parliament, he would ask the engineers to study the valleys behind the mountain, where a large natural basin was located. He hoped to build a reservoir there and collect the rainwater that could supply our people well during a drought year. I was busy wondering whether my father, on his own, might solve one of the farmer’s main problems that always posed a financial threat, sending them out of business or heavily into debt. Surprisingly, he was considered the first person who ever tried to solve this problem.

All my memories from that summer of 1961 revolve around my father’s parliamentary campaign. I recall vividly one late afternoon when the servants had just watered the brick paths and walkways in the yard, which had grown hot under the intense midday sun. They also cooled the grounds a bit before they brought out the Persian rugs and spread them out from the pool to the side wall of the house. The chairs were set around the rugs. The rugs were for the ordinary people to sit and the chairs for the more influential citizens, who were about to gather on our property for the political rally that would soon take place.

Darab’s religious leaders and the city officials were invited. The city officials gave speeches on the rostrum erected near our house. Their speeches offered the usual clichés about the importance of election day, and why the people should vote in a democracy, and the progress that the government has made during the years past. Ultimately, they all hailed the Shah and wished the Shah’s shadow would always fall on his country’s people.

Then my father gave his speech. As I already stated, he was a well-educated man for his time and also had the makings of a good politician. Physically speaking, he was heavy set with a round brownish face, exuding a friendly aura. He began speaking about the history of the constitutional revolution called Mashroteh. He talked about the people like Satar Khan and Bagher Khan, who both sacrificed their lives for this revolution. He discussed the proper duties of a representative in parliament, Majless, and how he would essentially be overseeing the government. He closed his speech by promising to acquire the necessary funds from the government to cure the city’s social needs…

After all these years, Darab’s school system still has only eleven grades. To complete their high school education, students have had to relocate to Shiraz, a long distance from their family.

He paused and resumed with emphasis,

What an excessive expense upon our people, who must pay for their sons’ room and board in that far away city! It has prevented most of our students from gaining their high school degree.

Then he glanced around at his audience and spoke calmly, making sure his words carried the sincerity he so deeply felt.

We need more qualified teachers and a complete high school in Darab.

Then he shook his head before he continued,

All things must improve for our children! It is sad to see them gathering near the deep ditch hole, Goad gel Kanie, using paper to cover their buttocks so they might engage in one of the only activities available to them…Sliding down a ditch!

He paused.

Is this the only way our future generation can enjoy their childhood?

He raised his voice while he tapped his hand on the podium.

Why do we not have a park and a playground for children equipped with slides and swings? Building these facilities does not cost much; someone needs only to ask for it!

A wide meaningful smile broke across his face as he shook his head.

Still, the city does not have a movie house. Our people have a right to enjoy themselves once in a while, not to mention we can all benefit learning from the outside world. During each government celebration, I see many talented young men and women; among them, I found excellent comedians, good actors, stage players, singers, and musicians, but they only perform during the celebrations. I wish there were theaters also, where our talented youth could show their talent.

He studied the audience, making sure that they were digesting his words before he continued in an even louder voice.

"Still, our peasants do not have adequate means to transport themselves to the city hospital or a doctor when one is needed. Every year we learn that a bus, car, or truck falls from the mountain road outside Darab, yet nothing is done about it. All it takes is to widen the mountain road. With modern technology, this can be done easily.

Our farmers, in this great agricultural and citrus fruit center, still use the old methods for cultivation, irrigation, and collection. And those who use the new technologies do not know how to use the mechanical equipment, such as water pumps, tractors, and combines properly. Ultimately, the equipment breaks down and causes a heavy burden on many farmers, making them indebted, making them bankrupt even, so they must escape to the big cities for not paying their debt. And those who stay have to sell their land or houses to pay off their debt. This is their fate. And it is truly a tragedy for all of us to see our shark usurers become fat while our cherished farmers become broken!

Then a sudden calmness settled upon him.

What we need is the help of the government to train the farmer how to use the modern technology and to show us modern ways of farming and to provide us with financial aid. Yes, this is what we need.

His final statement was a hopeful comment about the election.

I have good news for all of us! he said with a slight smile. According to my influential friends in Tehran, the election will not be corrupted. The election will be free and open, and the people’s votes will be respected. We shall not have a stranger as our representative ever again.

The people started applauding. Among the audience, seated on the rugs, sat the usurer, Hajie Mostafa. He had a close-cropped dark-brown beard, a mouth full of yellow and brownish teeth, a dark reddish face, and a scant amount of hairs attempting to cover his obvious baldness. His dark brown eyes were narrow with thin eyebrows on top of them. While he listened to my father, he methodically played with his short marble color beads, and with the other hand, he rubbed his filthy crooked toes that pierced out from his socks. He always wore dark shirts and pants since the colors could hide the fact that he did not wash his clothes regularly. When my father talked about the shark usurers, some of the audience glanced over at him. But Haji Mostafa did not give a damn about what the others thought of him.

What the audience did not know was the sad truth that my father had owed, Haji Mostafa good deal of money. It was borrowed to fund his campaign. In a way, my father was gambling on his future. But politics for him was like a chess game, and the need to borrow money was just one necessary move, like giving speeches, challenging his opponents, or managing his day-to-day campaign throughout the villages. At a young age, I would say that it resembled a soccer