Seyyed of Quarters 15 (5)

Memories of Iranian Released POW, Seyyed Jamal Setarehdan

2016-11-12

Seyyed of Quarters 15

Memories of Iranian Released POW, Seyyed Jamal Setarehdan

Edited and Compiled by: Sassan Nateq

Tehran, Sooreh Mehr Publications Company

‎2016 (Persian Version)‎

Translated by: Zahra Hosseinian

The school bell rang. We walked out of class. It was clear and the sun was in the center of sky. It was in the late April 1981 and as usual, some of students were coming to grips with each other in front of the school; as if our days didn’t elapsed without it. I walked toward our house with two or three of my classmates. I saw a motorcycle is coming toward us with all speed, while we were crossing the Gendarmerie intersection. It collided to me before I can step aside. Like a football ball, I was shot into air and then fell down the ground. The rider also fell down a few meters away and was dragged on the ground. People and shopkeepers ran toward us. My friends picked up my books, held my arms and took me to Mrs. Ghamar’s house. She lived near our house. As the old woman touched my ribs, my whole body gave me a lot of pain. "His ribs have sunken." she said, "take him to the house and give him a bottle to blow inside it."

As soon as I reached to our house, my mom began groaning.

• Oh my God! What’s the matter, darling?

My friends told him the story. My father and brother came and took me to doctor by car. The doctor examined me and said, 'Thank goodness, there is no bone fracture."

After he prescribed some tablets and ampoules, we returned home. After two or three hours, my body’s pain increased. Little by little, I forgot a lot of things. It was as if I had suffered from amnesia. I could not remember the moment of the accident and the names of my friends and family. As soon as I was given an injection, I slept.

"I’ve slept at home for two days and have not gone to school!" When I recovered my senses, I said to myself.

I wanted to get up and go to school, but my mother told me that I had been in bed for twenty days and my father has reported the matter to the school. I could not believe that I had slept for twenty days. My mother said my body was bruised as a result of collisions with motor and taking tablets and injecting caused sleep.

I had been behind my classmates and the exams came close. Therefore, I was studying day and night. Finally, I passed the exams.

With the onset of summer, I went to my father's drapery. My father had asked one of our relatives and me to run it. It was close to Mohammedia mosque. Sometimes our relative sent me to receive orders. I rode my bicycle and tied the rolls of fabrics on carrier in Saraye Haj Ahmad and Bazar Jalaee and brought them to our shop.

I had Parvin E'tesami’s Divan in our shop. I read some of her Masnavi or Qasida or piece. I liked "unraveling" Masnavi and "mad and chain" piece and most of the time I read them. Occasionally my friends in Mohammedia mosque came to see me. While they were drinking a cup of tea, I read some of Parvin E'tesami's poetry for them. Like me, they also liked the poems.

In the late one of August days, my friends came and we sat down and were busied talking. In the corner of our shop, samovar and teapot bubbled. I poured tea for them. Rahim Rezaie picked up Parvin’s Divan and began to read. He was reading wrong. Mohammad Qolian and Mojtaba Hanifezadeh[1] said: "Why do you read like this?"

Javad Zanjani[2] said: "that’s enough! You ruined the poem. Give it to Seyyed Jamal to read."

I took the Divan and read "unraveling" poem for them.

‘A destitute ill-fated old man,

Spent hard and difficult days,

Both his daughter and son was ill,

It was a disaster for both poverty and caring the sick

She needed medication and he needed a doctor,

The food of this one was sighing; the food of that one was tearing.’

My friends praised me and nodded with every hemistich which I read.

***

A few of my friends in Mohammedia mosque had been sent to the front. I said to myself: "It is time that I also go to fulfill my obligation."

It was early 1983 and I was fifteen years old. I went to dispatch base. One of then-IRGC’s commander, Moghaddam, and his friends looked at me and said: "Come out of the queue. You aren’t fit for fighting."

I have got a cheek. In the next dispatch, I stood among others in the line, but Moghadam and a tall guardian, one of whose feet hobbled a little, seized me by the collar and took me out of the queue. I became angry, but could not do anything. Some of people, who had stood in the queue, were younger than me, but their appearance caused the guardians not to prevent them. I suffered on account of my thinness and shortness.

No matter how, I had decided to be sent. I did house shopping, so my mother doesn’t get into trouble when I am absent. One of those days, I bought ten Lavash. Seeing the breads, my mother said, "Seyyed Jamal What's going on? Why did you get so many breads? We haven’t run out of bread you bought yesterday!"

• Dry them. They will be needed.

The next day I bought ten Lavash again, and filled the empty oil gallons and arranged them in the corner of yard. Sometimes winter was very hard and the long queues in front of branches of oil shops became longer and longer. "What’s wrong with this child?" When my parents saw these things, they said.

Next to my father’s shop, Haj Ayat was the seller of flour and salt, 9 Rial per Kilogram. I paid him ninety Tomans and bought a hundred kilogram sack of salt. My father was not in his shop and had gone to do some works. An old man, who moved cargos by his cart, was passing in front of the shop. I screamed: "Brother!"

• Yeah, son of Aqa Seyyed.
• I have a sack of salt. How much do you get for taking it to our house?
• Ten Tomans.

I didn’t say ‘no’. I gave him ten Tomans and put the sack into his cart and took it to the house. The old man helped me to bring the sack inside. When my mother saw the sack of salt, said, "Oh, what do you want to do with so much salt[3]?"

• It’ll be necessary.

She looked at me confused and did not know what to say.

To be continued…