Inlaying (Khatam Kari)

As a young lady, I was vaguely aware of Khatam, though it was all around. But I knew it was an important art to my parents and relatives — and I assumed to all Iranians. Even they may not have known what it was really was. I was merely told not to touch these things. When my brothers left for the U.S. and went to college, my mother spent a great deal on gifts that used Khatam (such as jewelery boxes, picture frames, chessboards, pipes, desks, musical instruments and other arts.) Such things are highly practical for honoring recipients with quality and uniquely Persian gifts.

Eventually I learned that the intricate details were all done by hand with precious materials. And when I married, my grandma gave me an antique cosmetics box made of khatam and silver. She emphasized that I should take very good care of it, and said “It is from the Ghajar kingdom and should be in a museum.” Still, I didn’t fully appreciate it.

After 60 years, as I was making a diorama, I became curious about the art of Khatam. In the summer 2005, for two months I attended a Shiraz vocational school to learn the craft. It came easy for me. Though I only learned the process, I felt that I could master the art of Khatam given enough time.

The process

Making Khatam has two major process. First making slabs of the material and then applying thin slices to the surfaces.

I arranged in a pattern very thin sticks of ebony, teak, ziziphus, orange-wood, rosewood, and brass. These formed a group in the shape of a cylinder and were glued together. Thick cross-section slabs were made from the cylinders. These were cut into shapes and fitted together to multiply the pattern. Then we compressed and merged these pieces between two wooden frames.

The final slabs were sliced into very thin (1 mm), beautiful sheets. The sheets get trimmed to fit and wrapped onto an object to be glued. The finishing touch is a varnish/lacquer over the Khatam surface.

The sheets of Khatam are very delicate and it was hard to glue them onto the objects. I brought some sheets back to MN to be used in making the dioramas. Then I discovered how very difficult the craft can be. The humidity here is an extreme obstacle to making khatam. I believe this art form could never have evolved in this climate.

Wednesday bazaar

[ Chahar-shanbeh Bazar ]

I dreamed about being close to the sea and being able to touch the water and watch the waves. At last, when I was a teenager, we went north for a vacation.

I not only saw the Caspian Sea, but I learned about the culture of the northern people. The bazaar up north was much different from the south’s. The women seemed to be doing everything, from housework, to toiling in the farms and orchards, and to even the selling of their products. And they seemed to be more liberal than women of the south. That showed me how women can have big roles in raising their families even if they, like all other Persian wives, are not the decision makers.

But despite all the female energy I saw around me, I also found the other extreme: men running a kingdom of sorts and their subordinate queens busy with their own small worlds of jewelry, cosmetics, Western fashions, and gossip.

Traditional bazaar

[ Bazarche-h Hajaghajan ]

In Persia, water is a sign of light and peace and a goldfish is a sign of motivation and agility. In many homes there was a pond of blue tiles.

We hunkered over a similar pond in middle of the hustle and bustle of the bazaar to play with the goldfish that were for sale. People and animals of all types and sounds passed by. The air was filled with the smell of dried spices, golab (rose water) and ripening fruits. The red heaps of saffron glowed under the bright, dusty rays that crept through the wooden roof far above us.

During the summer, eggplants were sold everywhere because one could eat them in so many ways: stews, dips, pickles. The most expensive items were strawberries and blackberries, which the vendors arranged impeccably in small straw baskets. Only the very well off could afford to take them home.

Today, I have all the Persian saffron I need for my cooking, but regardless of the quality, somehow it never smells and tastes the way it used to.

The Bazaar

[ Sar Dezak Shiraz ]

Unemployment and underemployment was a fact of life. Many male and female laborers struggled all their lives—not to get ahead, but to merely scrape by. So the streets were filled with hordes of vendors selling the food of the poor: baked beats and turnips, and, during the winter: fereni (Persian sweet milk cream).

I was not allowed to eat the goodies in public. Again this was the sort of lower-class behavior that my mother found embarrassing.

I felt bad for the food vendors, always teary-eyed and frowning in the clouds of steam and smoke that rose from the food and the wood fires they cooked over. Now I am nostalgic for the smell of that simple food and the simple, humble people that struggled to make the best of what fate had handed them.

Drinking Water

[ Abeh Khordan ]

Water, especially good drinking water, is a scarce commodity in Iran. I was about 10 years old (around 1949) when Shiraz became the first city with a municipal water system. Before then, spring water was brought to us in giant leather sacs, carried into the city on the back of mules. That water went to the middle class families. The rich had their own private wells, from which the servants filled covered pools, and from which drinking water was drawn.

And the comfortable could also afford to drink carbonated soft drinks such as Coca Cola, which became a big business not long after it arrived in Iran.

The lower class got their drinking water from a public water house. They used different water containers such as a kouzeh (a ceramic container), a doulcheh (a leather bag), or a deeg (a crop container).

However the water in Shiraz was not pure and ninety-nine percent of the children suffered from aleppo boil, a kind of skin disease contracted from contaminated water. There was no cure for aleppo boil at that time. We suffered from it for a long time and when it was finally eradicated, we were still left with ugly skin scars.

Laborer’s home

[ Halabiabad ]

Tuesday was the day I left my job as a business school instructor and went out with other volunteers to aid the poor. My favorite location was Halabi-abad (best translation: tin city). The name came from the millions of five-gallon tin cans the poor stuffed with garbage and used as bricks to build their homes.

The typical home was only a 10-foot by 12-foot room, used as the kitchen, living room and bedroom for the entire family—and sometimes the pets and the chickens too.

What kind of woman can raise a family in these conditions? Tough, unbreakable, resourceful. Amazingly, I found these destitute women to be happier, healthier, more motivated, and, remarkably, more thankful than those in the upper-classes. Compared to them, my compatriots seemed arrogant and perpetually depressed.

The Struggle to survive

[ Talash ]

The lower class female has no choice but to work hard to raise her children, even if she has a couple of them and is pregnant with a third.

She straps one child to her back and puts another in a wagon, and then pulls the loaded donkey behind her, while filling the streets with her cries for business.

Women of all economic backgrounds got along well, even if one looked like a Barbie doll in her Western outfit, and the other was a mere peasant. It was customary to exchange compliments, regardless of economic status. Perhaps what they had in common was that none of them were in charge of their own lives. They lived worlds apart, but they were all oppressed and kept from reaching their potentials.

National Picnic

[ Sizdeh Bedar ]

I remember celebrating Sizdeh Bedar at several different gardens in Shiraz. This is the Persian festival of nature, a national picnic. It is celebrated on the thirteenth day of the year and the last part of the New Year’s celebrations. (The first part being the fire festival of Chaharshanbeh Soori welcoming Norouz.)

The translation of sizdeh bedar into English is “thirteen, getting rid of”. As in many cultures, 13 is considered to be sinister or bad luck. On this day we get away from it all, from work and home, and go outdoors — leaving evils behind.

I was most fond of Eram Garden. My diorama shows that picnic area circled by a stream and surrounded by the trees of the garden. The museum-like manor is shown is shown in the background painting.

I was 10 at that time (about sixty years ago). The home and it’s garden were not public. It belonged to Ghashgai brothers and only a few families were permitted to go there. The landscaping and the architecture were elaborate. I remember the sounds of stream were like the most beautiful music.

The tradition of Sizdeh Bedar traces back to the era of king Jamshid who elevated this Zoroastrian festival of nature for his people. Sizdah Bedar often coincides with the first day of April.

Gathering for Prayers

[ Namaz-eh Jama-at ]

I hated it when I was sent to the mosque ahead of the Namaz-eh Jama-at (the formal public prayer) to reserve first-row spaces for my grandma and aunt.

It was the worst during Ramadan because of the crowds. It mind-numbingly hot in Shiraz during the summer and I had to wear a chador (head-to-toe scarf) to be allowed into the mosque. I did my best to cover my hair and my body in the chador, but nevertheless the attendant always complained to my grandma: “She is a troublemaker; how could she be your granddaughter?”

My grandma was a respected woman and I felt so badly when I embarrassed her. My goal was to keep my grandma pleased and believe me I did my best.

I still enjoyed being with grandma during those Ramadan nights, filled with religious ceremonies and orations of the Koran. I still remember those meaningful Arabic words meant to bless God: “Alghos Alghos Menan nar ya rab” (“Save us, save us, protect us and get us out of hell”).

Winter Solstice

[ Shabeh Yaldah ] (in traditional living room)

Of my memories of winter, what stands out the most is the warmth and coziness of the korsi, a pot of hot charcoals placed under a knee-high table. The table is then covered with giant thick quilt, creating a toasty nighttime refuge for the entire family. Parents and children could easily spend the entire night around the korsi, chatting, eating and sleeping.

On the longest night of the year, we cuddled under the quilt and on giant, velvet cushions as she recounted for us ancient myths and treated us to watermelon, pomegranates, and aajil (mixed nuts). Remembering those meaningful stories, the tangy, sweet taste of the pomegranate, and the crunch of nuts breaking under my teeth brings back feelings of youth and hope.

My beautiful and bright memories from shabeh yalda turn dark and bitter when I remember my overbearing uncle, pompously sitting on a chair above us—the typical proud and domineering Iranian man.