My first year
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I was raised in a moderately conservative Persian family, financially comfortable and totally protected by my dad, who was, I must admit well travelled and fairly open minded about many things and I know that he dearly loved us all but he was a tyrant!
Our house was a little dictatorship inside a seemingly democratic country and my dad was the despot, though he provided everything for us, a beautiful seven bed roomed mansion in the suburbs of Tehran with a big garden, swimming pool, two cocker spaniels, servants and all. But he didn’t like us going anywhere alone or without permission, we were always escorted by a chauffer or someone. My sister and I were not allowed to go to our friend’s parties, though my dad himself used to throw huge parties where all his friends came with their kids, all about the same age group as us, boys and girls, he didn’t mind us talking to those boys! Because he knew that this was his empire and he was in control. It wasn’t just us girls either my brothers were quite restricted to. I remember once my younger brother went to a party and came back really late at night, dad refused to let him in the house, because he had gone out without permission. My brother had to sleep all night in his car parked just outside the house.
I always said to my older sister that dad wants us to get married to a prince and live in a castle just up the road so we are not too far away from him and he can check up on us daily!
I wasn’t going to accept that as my destiny. I needed to get out of the house, the tyranny of my dad and the country where I felt squeezed in to submission to the policies of a corrupt government who gave away all our natural resources for their own gain and then created a suffocating environment for intellectuals like me.
That was when I decided to nag my dad to send me away. I knew once I am out of his reach I would never go back. I had to escape, especially as I felt I was in grave danger in Iran because of my thirst to gain knowledge about things that were forbidden and my political views.
Forbidden I said, I don’t mean naughty stuff, I meant things like philosophy and politics. I was reading Hegel and Nietzsche at the age of 17 but I wanted to go further than that and that kind of stuff was just not available openly at the time.
I never really wanted to come to England, I wanted to go to America, The land of opportunities! but my dad refused to send me there, his excuse was that America was too far, too big, too wild and too dangerous!
Finally after having nagged, begged and pleaded with my dad for months, he agreed to send me to England, and that was because a cousin of mine was studying there and had a talk with my dad, telling him that he would take me to the same family that he stayed with when he first went there and the same school where he learnt English in Cambridge. So dad was satisfied that I will be staying somewhere SAFE! He forbid me to stay in London and so what did I do? I stayed in London. Well for the first month anyway, because my accommodation wasn’t ready yet. But I came back after a year and a half in Cambridge and stayed to this day.
My cousin was very helpful. He explained, during our 6 hour flight, a lot of things to me showed me the currency, and told me a bit about London and Cambridge, he told me not to expect a modern city as London was an old city with old and sooty buildings and I was thinking “don’t worry about that, I aint going there for the buildings!”
My first year in Cambridge was a lonely one, I went to school every day and then came back home, sit in my room and write poetry, or read, sometimes when I felt really sad and lonely I used to play “Sweet Caroline” and dance while I cried.
At home, I was never alone, though I spent most of my time in my room reading, writing or painting, there was always someone at home, my mum was always there and my sister was in the next room so if I felt like company, I could always go and chat with her. But here, there was just me – and everyone I knew and loved were so far away. Being home sick was not something I was prepared to admit though! My thoughts were that this is what I wanted, I asked for this, I wanted to be alone, I’ve made this bed and I must sleep in it. I’ll get over it. And boy I did!
My land lady, an old lady from New Zealand, was very nice and kind, she shared this really nice house with her English friend and companion, also an old lady and they were both very supportive and kept calling me to watch TV with them and gave me tea and biscuits when we watched the news at 9 pm every night, corrected my English and basically acted like my mum! I can still smell the bacon she used to grill for us for breakfast and she was the one who introduced me to Marmite!
She experimented with different cuisines every night. We all used to sit at a table and
have dinner together, so really it was just like home except my brothers and sister were replaced by strangers, and my mum and dad with the two old ladies.
There were a couple of other students in the house, a French girl, someone else who I now can’t remember because he was a very insignificant type of person, and there was Ralph!
Ralph was a Jewish /English boy at one of the colleges which I can’t remember now, reading economics. He had the biggest room and often had his friends around and he used to ask me to go there and listen to music.
He burnt incense and they all smoked cigarettes and talked a lot but my English wasn’t all that good, so whenever his friends were around I used to just sit there and every now and then they would say IRAN, very loudly just to make me turn around and look at them! I knew they were not talking about me or Iran but they just did that because they though that was the only word I recognise!! Suckers! I could actually understand a lot more than they knew!
Ralph introduced me to my first public protest when one day he told me he was going to London to take part in demonstration against Margaret Thatcher who was Minister of Education at the time. He said that the student union had arranged for them a coach to take them to London and then bring them back and asked me if I wanted to go. My reaction was, Yeah! But isn’t this just for the University students? And he said, “don’t worry about that when we get to the bus, just look at them with your big brown eyes and smile, I’ll take care of the rest”. We were taken to the LSE (London school of Economics) where we stayed the night in the big hall with about 600 other people.
I slept on a hard wooden bench for a few hours while he went off somewhere with his other friends – the only thing I was thinking then was “My god! If my dad knew where I am and what I’m doing right now, he would have a heart attack! He might even fly over just to tell me off!”
The next morning they served us coffee and pastry, I skipped the pastry! And then we went out in the street for the rally. I didn’t even know what we were protesting about at the time but I just wanted to be where the action is.
I was so excited I was almost breathless. Ralph kept walking beside me and we walked, jugged, walked and ran all day without any nasty reaction from the Police. This was a peaceful demonstration and for me it was an experience I will never forget.
Every now and then Ralph would ask me if I was OK. I am sure he felt responsible for me because I was so much younger than him. I had just turned 20 and he must’ve been about 26 because he was a final year student doing his masters. And don’t you dare take this the wrong way! This was pure friendship. He was a perfect gentleman, did not even once make any sexual advances towards me or showed any romantic attachments, which was just fine by me because I didn’t like him in that way anyway.
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