tales of the city - jigsaw will never fall into place!

it was around 6:30 when he left the office building. it's located right across the subway station, where he takes the tube to work and back everyday. an office on top of a building with a panoramic view to the city, specially a clear view to his favourite mountain peak at the north of the city.

he took the same path he used to take everyday to the subway station. he had jigsaw falling into place by radio head on, in his i-pod, listening to music just as any other day. same paddlers and dealers had their stuff showing on the ground. maybe same people were walking by.

though, that day was somehow different! he came across a little girl, selling small packs of tissues. 8 maybe 9, with her glasses on and a girly dress in pink and white. just behind her was probably her wimp mother, cover in a dirty black cloth, offering a scale for people to weigh themselves. maybe a reminder of their miserable life.

it stroke him like a hammer.

"...just as they play your favourite song
as your bad mood disappears..."

a sudden rush of thoughts made his mood disappear. the thoughts about the little girl's life! "what is her joy? how does she have fun? does she own toys?" the little girl didn’t seemed to care that much though and she was playing with a bag of small packs of tissues. what she had to sell. a head ache, for millions of thoughts rushed through his head. he wondered about the compassionate and the merciful?
he wished for the power to change her life. give her a better life. he thought " such a wishful thinking! one cannot even find it in happy ending fairy takes these days." yet he was not sure if he had the power to change things, she would be happy. he felt mad at himself and helpless feeling.

he then continued on. he felt like the time was no passing as it's supposed to and each step seemed like an hour. all in slow motion. he was now realising the details that he had never known before. details of despair and pain, hopelessness within the face of the people, whether the illegal merchants or passer bys. the boys the girls. sometimes but rarely, smiles and laughters.

"...before you run away from me
before you're lost between the notes
the beat goes round and round..."

the next one caught his attention was that young fit man selling sunglasses. quite in shape. "he couldn't be just another random seller" he said to himself. "he just doesn't fit in here!" he wondered why he's there, although he had his guess. "money... why else? living is not easy in this town." “this guy could be a fitness instructor” he thought. and he suddenly remembered the recent comments of buffoon Il Presidente! “people live happy in this town!” a feeling of rage filled him within.

he never found the courage to start a conversation and he continued on. he in fact was a chicken in starting conversations!

as he approached the stairs he noticed that the young man who used to sit there and sells maps of the city is not there. he felt a vacuum within his life. a surprising vacuum! “why should i feel this way?” he wondered. he then realised that there was no more of the telepathic conversations with the boy. he missed him there. just as if the monument of freedom was stolen from city square, he was stolen from that place and moment. he felt robbed.

"... come on and let it out ..."

he wanted to scream. scream his name but he wouldn't know that! after all conversations were all up in his head. mute and silent! those conversation wouldn't fit in words or limits of his courage.
“where are you my friend?” he whispered. he felt a failure, for all the promises he made to the boy but could never fulfill them. all those promises have become all but nonesense. he had to move on and get out of that torturous moment.

so he did and there was the elderly man who sells religious tablets. all kinds of prayers, verses from holly book for the lost souls. a saviour sent from heaven!
he’d known the elderly for a year now. longer than anyone there. the very first day that he came back home and went to the office the elderly was there, standing with his merchandise next to office building's steel barriers.
at first, elderly presence was like a support to him filling the boys vacuum, until the moment he looked closer at old man's face. the same hopelessness he was struggling through that day with an additional tiredness. he was looking for something different in the existence of that man. someone who has experienced a lot and knows how to treat the ups and downs of life. instead, he found nothing but pain. a pain that he himself had partly transferred to the elderly and other merchants there. the pain of a better life style, at least on the surface.

"... jigsaw falling into place
there is nothing to explain
you eye each other as you pass..."

it all was a familiar experience on a whole new level. effigies of hopelessness and despair. an illustration of the helplessness he had been feeling for long time. it was painful.
he couldn't do a thing to help them, to wipe off the misery. so he continued suffering with them. after all all he had in his pocket was a credit to get in the subway train, to get home. nothing more. not even a dime!

"... wish away the nightmare ..."

he had a moment of silent with himself. suddenly, everything was blank. and he could paint them in the way he wanted to. in that moment, everything was different.

"... jigsaw's falling, ... into place ..."

experiencing the power to change things was sweetest taste he had for long time. though not long lived.
he snapped out of the moment as a passer by hit him in shoulder and realised nothing had changed. just as bitter as it was. and he couldn't explain a thing, just as it was in the song. the difference with song was that the jigsaw never falls in place here.

خوبیش اینه که ما هر هفته از سالمون یه اسمی داره. ولی نمیدونستم که هفتهء جهانی مساجد هم داریم!!!! که البته مهم هستش چون کلی از مردم دنیا که وقت نمیکردن به حرفهای رییس جمهور ما گوش بدن این فرصت پیدا کردن و الان میدونن که ایشون برای اداره دنیا برنامه دارن. یکی از همین مردم که ازجزیره باکره انگلیسی* میاد گفت: خدا عمرت بده جوون. از نگرانی درمون اوردی

*British Virgin Island!

there's this Ossie guy in our office that hardly answers my greetings back. i'm close to punch him in his eagle nose! he's of "what a day if you can look it in the face and hold your vomit" type of people!

۱۲ - مرداد - ۱۳۸۹

ماه گریست

و اشکهایش 

سرازیر از میان آسمان خاکستری 

 

تولد خورشید

نوید پایان شبی

بی قرار

و اکنون 

خورشید دیگربار ناپیدا

انتظاری دوباره 

سواحل مازندران و سواحل دریای مدیترانه

امام جمعه بابل، می گوید، سواحل مازندران شاهد (به گفته او) "بی بند و باری فزاینده" است. حسن روحانی گفت، سواحل مازندران و شمال شبیه سواحل دریای مدیترانه شده است! امام جمعه بابل با انتقاد شدید از این وضعیت افزود، افرادی به او گفته اند در صورت عدم واکنش دولت برای مقابله با این وضعیت خودشان وارد عمل خواهند شد.

میگم حاجی شما که سواحل مدیترانه رو دیدی باسه مام تعریف کن بینیم چه جوریه که اونجوری نکنیم!!!!

فقط یه شایعس!

شایعه شده که عزراییل بعد از اینکه در فرصتهای متعدد موفق به گرفتن جون جنتی نشده از سمتش استعفا داده و استعفاش هم قبول شده! 

gentle impulsion shakes me,makes me lighter, fearless on my breath

but i'm stumbling in the dark!

NBA

with LBJ, C. Bosh and Wade all signed with Miami; Kobe & Fisher in LA with couple of more good additions; Mavs & Celtics as well as Knick's good acquisitions, for me the team to watch is definitely Chicago Bulls.

with Boozer (probably, along with Amare and Dirk,  the most versatile power forwards in NBA at the moment), Derrick Rose has a great front court support who can score like any other Superstars but can also rebound. his team up with Noah makes bulls a tough team in defence, also a good scoring team with the scoring average he has.

now Bulls' gamble of sending Salmons to rivals Bucks seems to have been paid off.

our fathers backward attitude

years ago, when i still was a student, i used to teach. we had a family friend, a wealthy guy, price of whose wealth was people's blood. they had four daughters and a son, back then 3 or 4, probably 15 years younger than the youngest of the girls. the son was pretty annoying but the girls were quite cool. 

i used to teach the youngest. help her on chemistry, mathematics, etc. she was quite a cool chick. yet all the girls, although quite fun, were stuck in a male dominant conservative backward family set up. they were afraid of their father and literary do whatever he would have ordered them to do.

so one they i found out Neda, the youngest, is getting married and it was after the time that the youngest after Neda ran away with her best girl-friend saying they were in love. nothing wrong with that, for me of course. the family though, were devastated! so Neda getting married was a blessing for them. 

i found her on Facebook the other day. she's divorced. it's ok to be divorced, my sister is a divorcée.

whether she's happier or not is not the case, let's hope she is.

what it got me to think about was that what would it take for our fathers/families to wake up. for them not to lead their daughters, the ones that they have to love and protect into a hole called arranged marriage. a nose dive into misery. what it takes for them to realise that arranged marriages are not working. when they sent an 18 year old girl to the home of someone that they hardly know, it would most likely harm the girl. my father learned that lesson the hard way. so hard that i suffered as well. not all fathers in our society are like this but we have to admit that we are living in a patriarch society, where if male scholars (again not all of them but considerable number of them) could, they would have classified females in the same category as devil who should serve males as sex slaves and ensure men are fed, produce children and preferably sons. 

the fact is that she lost few good years of her life. the time that she could enjoy the most and now that she is divorced, the same mentality forces her to be a bit more careful in the way she lives because of what people might say. as result of this mentality,  divorcées are generally whores! well fuck whatever people might say. fuck the people. just wake up and let your daughters live their fucking life!!!

freedom

and freedom is only what they strip from you,

you fight back, but what you gain is nothing like it!

Madrugada - step in to this room and dance for me

closer, move in closer
closer now than
than ever before
i doubt it that you can survive
so far from your trenches and your friends
this is where competition starts and
and all that ends

i sense a lot of tension
loose, loose
pull out your arsenal
dance

step into this room and dance for me
step into this room and dance for me
come on, lady, dance for me
come on, come on, dance for me
step into this room and dance for me

by now we should know the music and the steps
oh, me, i never asked, i never set you up
a little something for me?
a little something thrown back at me?

this is the floor, these are the rules
these are the moves
this is the room in which we dance
close the door, say you will dance

step into this room and dance for me
step into this room and dance for me
come on, lady, dance for me
come on, come on, dance for me

تو دیگه مارو بی خیال شو!

Arsenal opens its bid for title with Liverpool in Anfield. it should give an idea on how good we are. with two three additions like Chamakh, let see if we can pull it off this season.

leading by example

leading by example, an essence of modern Project Management and Leaderships. when we read about PM and Leadership, it is often suggested that a good manager who leads will have to lead by example. meaning, stick to what you say. show you believe in them and that they actually count. 

i was reviewing the events in my career in during past four years and i remember my Project Technical Manager. we often talked about his narcissistic attitudes. he kept on talking about his experiences and how good he was blah blah blah. it was pretty dull. suddenly today it struck me that maybe he was trying to do the "Leading by Example"!

too often we will see that in our career whether it is our PM or we and a Project Manager that instead of leading by Example, we talk about the examples ignoring the fact that we gotta walk the talk.

now i have a reason to understand his narcissistic attitude!

rebuilding despair

the more i think about it , the more i get scared. what? the time and effort that it takes to rebuild this country. this land that despite my desires to go away and not to look back, just drew me back here. the attraction of this environment, the city set up, the heritage, it all are so strong in me that i could never convince myself to migrate from Iran. i went away and worked for few years. in Dubai, Spain and Libya, but when it comes down for me to decide between Iran and living outside, i chose Iran. one of the reasons was the hope that it will change for better. well, it has changed but for worse, at least for now. and we are yet to see if it will take a twist for better in future and how soon a future?

the desire in me to live in Iran and be Iranian was sop strong in me that i was totally caught by surprise. i never knew i would have that much love for this country.

rebuilding, is what i constantly think about. the task that seems a mission impossible in most of the days. where do we start? people need to change their attitude. attitude is what i believe we mostly misunderstand as culture.

mostly the incumbent government and for a large part of it (not larger tan the incumbent) previous governments are responsible for where we are today. insisting on commitment of the officials and decision makers rather than their knowledge and competencies, their skills; had led to massive and expanded fraud. it's just (to a large extent) hopeless. 

yet, we have no option but be patient and strong with one thing in mind. to redeem our country and make it from the scratch. total overhaul of the country in every level, education, Oil & Gas and other industries, police and security forces (i still have hard time figuring out how can a police live on his wages), government, parliament. we need to establish democracy and transparency. we need to get rid of false beliefs and fictions. 

long way we have in front of us. so many tears are to be shed. that would be the expense, the cost we have to pay for the moment of peace and pride.

drop the leash or get outta my fucking face!

drop the leash we are young...

my favourite lines from QOTSA

the mysteries of life, they just ain't my thing
if i told you that i knew about the sun and the moon
I'd be lying (untrue) 
the only thing i know for sure
is what i wanna do, anytime, anywhere and i say
i wanna make it with you, anytime, anywhere

on death & legends

Chuck Palahniuk once said: 

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.

barin of JFK

the whole world will be different soon,

the whole world will be relieved!

friends & acquaintances

too often one forgot the difference between a friend and an acquaintance and too often i get tangled in between to figure out whom i do call a friend and whom i don't? too often the ones that i spend time with them the most, doesn't deserve to be counted as friend!

how unhealthy! but can i really get rid of the acquaintances? well not really, since there are too few of friends around. some of them are thousands of miles away. some are near but for some reasons, it's not happening that we meet up. 

i guess it's a given that most of the times, there are some impurities. 

a friend to me is that no matter what, she or he would not be upset with me. stands by me all the time in good or bad. which makes me wonder, have i been a friend to my friends?