It is lunchtime; We are hungry very much!

Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2024-12-19

The routine of our [Fatemeh Keshavarzian] rallies was that the boys would walk from their high school, located behind our school (school name: Mahboobeh Mottaheddin), to the girls’ school to go together to where they were supposed to rally. The brothers, as they had done in the previous days, approached our school and opened the door. I and a few female students who had been waiting for the revolutionary brothers to arrive, joined them. The school principal began to threaten and said, “Mrs. Keshavarzian! Rest assured, if you step out of school, your discipline grade will be zero.” Ignoring the principal’s words, we started to move along with the brothers while chanting slogans.

The next day, when we planned to demonstrate, the principal put up stubborn resistance. This resistance was natural, because SAVAK would definitely find out and this incident would have serious consequences for the principal. We waited until noon to get her consent to go to the rally, but she had put her foot down and wouldn't let us. The principal's resistance had increased since the day before. The principal's resistance had increased since the day before. It was already noon and the guys, hungry and desperate to march, were leaving school, until a brilliant idea came to me. We had to spice up our work in some way so that the guys wouldn't get tired; so I told them: "Let's go to the principal's office and recite the poem I'm going to read to you." The guys said: "Now tell us your poem, let's see how it goes." I recited the poem to them: "It's lunchtime / We're hungry very much." They kept repeating it until we reached the principal's office. When we arrived, I told the guys: "Come on, everyone, recite the poem you learned out loud; just don't forget to tap your feet in unison while reciting the poem and, as it were, get into rhythm!"

The guys performed the play according to the plan I had drawn up for them. There was a commotion in the school hall. The principal came out of her office in confusion. When she saw the situation, she started threatening again: "Be sure, if you step out of school, I will hand over all of you to the security organization." At that time, the name SAVAK was still scary, but despite all this, we were determined to go to the rally and continued our work, ignoring the principal's words, until the principal was forced to let the students go in order to keep the school atmosphere calm.

As we were leaving the school happy and smiling, the principal raised her voice and said, "Keshavarzian, rest assured! You are the first person whose name I will give to SAVAK!"

Source: The Fifth Festival of Sacred Defense Memory-Writing with the topic of memoirs of the veteran women of Mazandaran Province during the Islamic revolution and sacred defense, Sari, Srav-e Sorkh-e Bonyad, 1396 (2017), pp.33-34.