gol agha

bargeboo: recently a prominent personality in iran passed away. kiyumars saberi aka "gol agha" (mister flower) after a long battle with terminal illness died at the end of april, last month.

for many he was the father of political farce in the post revolution iran, in the tense years of the iran/iraq war. his writing was specially precious and exciting because it was written in years when the regime was new and political pressure and crack-down on media and especially the written word was intense and brutal.

he quickly became well known and subsequently well loved and respected by all for his witty monologues and eventual dialogues between various characters he invented, in his column titled "a couple of sensible words",  published in daily newspapers in iran.

over ten years he wrote subtle comments on the state of things. his main spokes person was a seemingly simple man named "gol agha", an office caretaker who never took sides with any political party but had many opinions and was always quick to express them with a straightforward and sharp humor.

hamid reza nasiri writes: eventually encouraged by the warm reception and the strong following he found in people and officials alike he began to publish weekly, monthly and yearly collections of farce and humorous articles and caricatures as well as a weekly magazine for children, all named after the main character, "gol agha". the articles and the cartoons continued to gently poke fun at the government officials and to portray the social issues and problems of people in a simple but very clever way. his success eventually turned the "gol agha" establishment into the unofficial comedy/farce headquarters in iran and a dynamic school for up and coming writers and artists in the field. it also made him a loyal following among children of the time who grew up with him over the next ten years.

armin songhori, one of the “gol agha” magazine contributors writes: "as long as he lived people of iran had a common entity that bonded them together. the “gol agha” humor reached everyone from torks, baloochies and kourds* to teachers, butchers, drivers, the opposition, the conservatives and the fundamentalists alike. it made them all laugh."

personally i remember reading him mostly after i left iran. my father went out of his way to get these weeklies, usually a week or two later than the original publication date, since we did not live in iran. brining it home was an event to itself. he being the father, got the first read with us sneaking it away whenever he fell asleep reading it or when he put it down for a quick trip to the washroom. even tough we did not get all the jokes since we didn’t live in iran, we still felt amazingly connected to the heart beat of the people, the daily struggles and their mundane everyday news stories. my dad was particularly sad when he passed away. this is indeed an end to an era for iranians who have known him.

with thanks to cappuccino magazine for collection of articles and photos.

* torks, baloochies and kourds are various ethnicities who all live as iranians under the same flag in various parts of iran. they each retain much of its native tongue and customs as they live for the most part as iranians of one nation.