Tajrish Quotes

“I don’t get how an angel like you is friends with a demon like her.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Sweepers in orange suits, sentenced to a life of mopping cigarette butts, pale leaves and dust off Tehran’s asphalt highlands waltz from side to side. The odd rebellious senior citizen turtles their way to the bakery. Yet every morning, the inhabitants of Tehran are hoping that maybe, just maybe, today will be better than the previous day.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“She shines brightest at dawn. True to her name as Tara originates from Sanskrit meaning “star.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“A far cry now that she is in Tajrish. This is District One. The posh end of town. Snuggled deep in between the streets of this bustling roundabout are where the rich live. She looks up, a huge billboard with a blue-eyed model sits there with a phone in his hand. Some brand she’s never heard of. She has never quite understood the infatuation Iranians have with celebrities and colored eyes. To her, it seems like any Iranian with green or blue eyes makes their way either on the big screen or on a billboard. The old traditional concept of Persian beauty, black eyes with a unibrow now replaced with Hollywood-inspired looks. The Leo DiCaprios, Brad Pitts of this world. Still a cheap knock-off of them as well.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Nowrooz, the Persian New Year, is the only time during the year that people stay in for two weeks. Tajrish roundabout though never sleeps.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Everybody in Tehran had grown accustomed to electricity shortages. It was just a normal part of day-to-day life.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Traffic was longer than a coupon queue.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“She was known as the girl with the Sumerian blue eyes.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Khorshid meaning “sun” in Farsi. It was a fitting name for the building as it almost reached the sun.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“The world belongs to the rich, she thought, and everybody else is here to serve them. Maybe Amir’s father was right. Maybe money is, above all else, the most important matter in life.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Death is a guarantee so we all have to act accordingly.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“You do know that I have an Iranian passport and from the looks of things, we aren’t welcome in a lot of places in the world.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“He walks around the table and gives his daughter a hug. All of her pain, all of her sorrows. All of the vile memories of Amir vanished. She cried and Mehdi’s chest now bore the tears of his daughter. “Be the river, azizam,” he said as he pulled back and kissed her on the forehead.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“An act so vile, even unforgivable from a mother.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“With a rose garden blanket thrown on her legs that matched her roosari, her scarf, she ran her liver-spotted hand across her left arm and said, “A hunter in Lorestan was hunting for wild goats. He spots one and chases it into a cave. He waited outside until the goat came out of the cave. When the goat finally comes out, he shoots it in the head and it dies on the spot. He approaches the goat and sees it had a wet goatee. He immediately knew there was water in the cave. So he went inside and after a fifteen-minute drop to the bottom he discovers a carved room filled with gold. There was so much gold that he could build an entire house with it. He starts to go back to the cave day by day to collect the gold. The people in his village figured there was something suspicious going on with the hunter so a few of them followed him once. They then discovered the hidden gold too. They all agreed that since he never shared it with the rest of the tribe, he should be killed. They killed him and started to take the gold themselves. Eventually all of the villagers dispersed throughout the country and the gold was nowhere to be found. Some say it is abroad and some say it is scattered all over the country. But what do I know? I never saw it because I lost both my eyes during the war.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“There is no symbol for a currency that bears no weight.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Mochaker, mersi, tashakor, sepas gozar, daset dard nakoneh, mamnoon; the number of words Iranians use to say “thank you” are never-ending.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Far from Tehran Pars and Mehdi’s sordid home lies Valiasr Street. The longest street in the Middle East. It stretches from the south to the north of Tehran separating the city’s western and eastern hemispheres. The further you get up north, the more flashy the shops and alleys get. It ends in Tajrish where the last stretch of Valiasr is chaperoned by magical trees giving it shade all year round.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“A slick BMW 5-Series pulls right by the traffic light. As the car comes to a halt, a bunch of kids, street kids, go to work. One of them, a young boy no more than eight years old kisses the BMW emblem on the hood. The driver, drenched in apathy, doesn’t even look up. Another kid comes by the side, begging the beamer’s owner for some cash. Everybody in Tehran knows that to pay these kids is bringing Slumdog Millionaire’s silver screen to the silver smog city.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Let’s go and live it up, a philosophy the RKOTs, the Rich Kids of Tehran, live by.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish