Bombaran

My first full day in Iran i hear bombs. It was a great day.

Let me explain. The last Tuesday night before the Persian New Year is a holiday we call ‘Chahar-shanbeh soori’. I’ll call it CSS for short. Traditionally, CSS is the night we remove all our bad spirits, all the negative things that happened in our lives this last year, and replace it with positive energy. It’s a night of cleansing. Dating from Zoroastrian traditions, CSS uses fire to do the cleasing. We start up a huge bonfire and the act of jumping over it is the act of our spirit being cleansed. We state, ‘zardee-yeh toh az man, sorkheeyeh man az toh’, which means ‘give me your vibrant, life-filled red energy, and take my sickly yellow energy.’

Now, back to the bombs. The Islamic Republic of Iran government, the IRI for short, made CSS illegal for a while. One can speculate about the reasons, but i think people’s perception was that the IRI wanted to get rid of the Iranian people’s Zoroastrian roots and traditions. They failed miserably; the people still celebrated the holiday. Now CSS in Iran seems to be more than just a traditional holiday before the Persian New Year. It’s the people gathering together for one night and making as much noise as possible to let the IRI know that this holiday, and other non-Muslim holidays, are not going away anytime soon. Kids buy various kinds of fireworks and explosives. Some are harmless, they light up the sky with one second of colorful rainbow flames, others make quick loud noises. But throughout the night, i heard enormous bombs go off that rattled windows. Narenjaks are bombs that kids can make in their rooms given the right equipment. I don’t really understand the need to go this far and make such things, but I guess that’s becasue I’m not a big fan of bombs.