Soumya and I met over zoom and I was so excited that I am going to get to meet one of my classmates in one and one conversation. So, I gathered some information about India and I found that our countries had a lot in common. I actually knew that our countries were united before and they were part of a bigger empire. Indians used to speak farsi which is my mother tongue. We were ruled by the same king a long time ago. So I shared what I knew with her and we talked about other similarities we had. The other exciting thing was that my great grandmother was Indian and I felt connected with Soumya. We talked about our local music and I sent Soumya a song. I wasn’t sure she is gonna like the song but to my surprise she found the language and the melody soothing. She defined my language soft and relaxing and I almost had the same feeling towards her language. At the end of our first conversation we decided to search more information for our next meeting.
The next meeting took longer than I thought. We had a lot to talk about. We found lots of similarities in our traditions. I wanted to know more about India’s architecture and I understood that they have lots of old aged mosques like us. We talked about our handicrafts. There were huge similarities in colors and patterns of India’s and Iran’s handicrafts. We then shared with each other our resume and portfolios. We talked about our future goals and concerns. This conversation was more personal. We shared the pictures of our family member and I got a chance to see photos of little Soumya. Because I talked to my family about Soumya before, my mother was curious to see her. So she came and said hi to her during our talk. This made me feel like inviting a friend to my home.
We end our conversation with a lot of excitement. I got to know another world and I got a chance to show my world to another person. It was a great feeling.
The last day I shared a quick video of Tehran’s streets and highways and where my home is located. To my surprise Sumya said that Tehran looks like New Delhi.
After talking to Soumya I started questioning my identity and my hometown. I realized that I belong to lots of places and no places at this moment. In the recent couple of months, I lived in different places due to the unstable situation and uncertainty COVID brought to many international students. So I can define my current status with a…
I started reflecting on my thoughts and and searching for…
At this point I decided to take an action and define myself with what I create with my hands. I picked a couple of bold thing about me to start my action.
I start from the ground, exactly where I am sitting now. A Persian Carpet, where I played, slept, danced, ate, cried, laughed, and lived. I felt in love with its design patterns, colors and its softness over and over again. The more I think about me, the more I feel attached to this lively textile. I have sensed its presence my whole life and I got a chance to experience weaving carpets myself. For me identity is like the process of weaving a carpet. We are born with perfectly arranged number of white warps. We have a strong foundation for good and bad… for kindness and cruelness. We are defined by the touches of people on us. Our carpet is built with the knots others create on our white warps. Not only our touches create a pattern for others, we create a strong knot which is always there no matter what. We are the weavers and the decider of what threads to use, short or long, tight or loose, colorful or gray, patterned or random… No touch is gone forever… it stays there as long as we live… weavers come and go, come and come, come and gonna stay forever, weaved and weaved, got tired and left, liked the carpet with all its messy knots, polished the knots others left behind… and all these add to the beauty of our carpets…
We are all weavers… but not a perfect one
