beauty and the beast

 << Source : banafshee.blogspot.com >>

bargeboo: this particular post is interesting because it covers a lot of topics: love of mother land, beauty of iran specially north which we don’t often read about in popular media, and the general feeling of despair felt by the youth.

she is coming back home from tehran, after taking the national university entrance exam (konkoor). She lives in rasht/gilan (a city/province north of iran, by caspian sea) which is a particularly beautiful place with many untouched or rather unkempt woodland and forests.

time of national exam is a particularly stressful period for the university hopefuls all across iran. they study for years leading up to this exam and many are not qualified at the end, mostly due to the sheer volume of attendees. government agents and their affiliates also get their own special quota among the accepted few which in turn limits the number of successful candidates yet again. i will write more on this topic in the coming months, because it is so strongly interwoven in the youth’s psyche.

i will only add at this time that in many western countries at the juncture when one finishes high school and prepares for college and university is a very exciting time… choosing their major, orientation activities, dramas of moving out, new life, new beginning…well almost none of these amazing, memorable and life changing experiences are felt by the hopefuls, neither the ones who pass the exam and specially not the ones who do not pass.

again, soon I will post more on this topic.

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Where in the world when the sky is overcast, then it is this lovely? Where in the world when it rains, it is this clean and musical? Where in the world after the rain, air is so wet and sweet smelling? Where in the world when the sun comes out, the sky shines this bright? Where in the world has, a sea this turquoise, a sky this blue, and mountains this green? Where in the world its air, fills you with love with every breath?

Where in the world, are the sidewalks this messed up, the asphalt on the streets is this cracked, has parks so full of garbage, has no movies in its cinemas, and no books in its libraries?

Where in the world you have to pay 500 tomans (the unofficial currency of iran) for apples worth only 100?

Where in the world are its people this lazy, careless and gullible?