Take this hijab and shove it

I'm leaving tonight for 10 days of reprieve... Time off for good behaviour.

It will be great to see family and friends, eat pork and walk with my head uncovered. After almost a year, I still can't quite figure out the whole head scarf thing. It's a pain in the ass when it keeps slipping and covering our hair really does nothing to protect a woman's modesty. I probably get more stares, jeers and lewd comments here than I have anywhere. Thankfully I don't understand exactly what is being said but the body language says enough.

The issue has come to a bit of a head at work too, where schools have started to refuse to visit our resource centre because the women there don't cover up. What amazes me is that it's still a problem even if it is a group of girls. Apparently it is just too difficult for the teachers and parents to explain to the girls why some women don't wear a head scarf. I guess telling them that the world is full of different people with different religions and traditions is asking too much.

Full Frontal Foolishness

One of the things I like best about the prophet of Zoroastrianism is that he was a man. He was not the Son of God sent to Earth to free mankind from themselves. There was no Immaculate Conception, no angels flying in through windows, no magical garden in the sky or anything that far-fetched.

Zarathustra was a simple man. He tended sheep. He had a wife. He had children. Oh, and yes, he had a penis.

The beautiful statue you see here was created by Australian artist Peter Schipperheyn as a metaphor for the dualistic and ever-present struggle we face every day. The image came to him in a dream and after struggling to discern its meaning he stumbled across our ancient prophet. He named the sculpture Zarathustra in homage to the man who first taught of the struggle between good and evil.

Being one of the smallest religious minorities in the world, our community should have been grateful and proud of this artistic recognition. But in an ironic twist, Parsis badgered and bullied the man until he was so confused and upset that he gave in and changed the statue's name! It is now called 'Thus Spake', which to me undermines and detracts from the true meaning of the work and instead pays homage to Nietzsche.

The complaint, it seems, was that the prophet was depicted naked, which people considered insulting and offensive. The community immediately hit the keyboards and started emailing bellicose messages expressing:

"...deep disappointment, sadness and astonishment that you would name this sculpture Zarathushtra, the name of a great Prophet.. The statue is neither a likeness (nor should it be) of the Great, all knowing Prophet but to depict Him nude is both disgusting to our sentiments and offensive... The religion and its peoples have always been open, forward thinking, honest, tolerant and sensitive to all other religions, castes and creeds. I would never encourage or give plaudits to anyone who did it, but I wonder how you would feel if someone were to do depict your God or Prophet inappropriately (i.e. as a full frontal nude)?"

I hate this kind of knee-jerk defensiveness and think it goes really counter to the main teachings of our religion: Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. In an attempt at a good deed of my own, I sent a message of support and congratulations to the artist and got back a sweet and thoughtful reply, a portion of which I am pasting here:

"I decided to call my sculpture 'Zarathustra.' This all happened quickly, and as far as the commissioner was concerned I was making a sculpture with a strange sounding name derived from a book by a mad German philosopher that no one really understood.

However the sheer poetry of this beautiful sounding name totally obsessed me, in my heart a mystique was enveloping the sculpture I was to make. As my understanding grew of this book and as I researched more and more the meaning of Nietzsche's book I began to get more and more interested in whom Zarathustra was and then began to research who he was.

When I read about the concept of dualism of the eternal struggle between the forces of light and dark and between good and evil, "He was wise enough to recognize that all the motives of human beings are based on action and reaction" I thought "That is it. I have found the spiritual meaning of the clenched fist and the open hand gesture that I had dreamed all those years ago." It meshed entirely in my mind with what I was trying to express.

The more I researched the more excited I became, to learn of an individual who lived so long ago whose teachings have been woven so tightly into subsequent spiritual traditions including my own [I was raised as a Christian] and yet whose presence has faded from contempory knowledge, in general I have found most people [in the West] know next to nothing of who Zarathustra was let alone the history of their own traditions. I am often saying to people now, "You know the three Magi in the Bible ... you realize they were Zoroastrian Priests."

I don't understand how we could squelch this kind of enthusiasm for our religion? I think it's awful, small-minded and petty. No wonder we're shrinking into obscurity.

I encourage everyone to visit the artist's homepage to see more photos and read the full story behind the sculpture. Until then, here's a sneak preview.

Some gals will do anything for kicks

I have always had a bit of a penchant for 1940s pulp fiction so imagine my surprise when I saw this little gem at a flea market in Tehran. I bought it for its sheer shock value (plus the fact that it only cost around a buck). Unfortunately it's not in perfect condition since, despite its racy content, some kid got his hands on it and put pen scribbles all over the cover.

For those of you who, like me, are curious about what passed for licentious literature 60 years ago, here's a sample:

"She wanted something, and she was willing to buy it. That much was obvious. she was throwing me all the cues.

I put my arm around her and pulled her toward me, then planted a long and deliberately passionate kiss on her velvet lips. She pulled away a little, drew a breath. Then she pressed herself hard against me and wriggled her body just a bit. This was it. My hand reached inside her gown..."

Not bad, eh? If the suspense is killing you, I'll let you know that the relationship didn't last. This, alas, was not love for Johnny McCoy.

Here's a brief summary of the story, which in the end turned out to be not bad. Johnny McCoy is a New York City jazzman who used to blow with progressive jazz great Tommy Vissano. They were revolutionary but ahead of their time and when we meet Johnny he's a bit down on his luck. That luck changes when he meets Lindsey (see above) who proposes that he front a progressive jazz quartet and give the thing one more chance. The only catch... the other three musicians are dames. Chicks playing jazz... can you imagine!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Johnny shows all of them a thing or three, has some wild nights, misses his real chance at love and ends up in the clink.

Not exactly prize-winning fiction, but the greatest thing about these books is their advertising. I mean, just look at that cover... How could anyone resist it? The promotional text on the back cover contains this gem: "It looked like a picnic for Johnny and his harem of hep-kittens..." Pure genius!

I'll keep my eyes peeled for more like it.

Pigs don't sing

Tomorrow is the day you will all get to set your clocks forward and lose an hour of sleep. The benefit of this time of year is the wonderfully long nights, when at the height of summer it stays light until late at night and you feel the evenings could go on forever.

Well banish these thoughts you evil heathens!

Daylight savings is un-Islamic. This according to the government of the I.R. who banned it this year. Although it was a measure brought in to the country 14 years ago to save energy by making the most of the natural sunlight, the fear is that it throws off the natural rhythm of prayer. People get confused and then pray at the wrong times. So forget the potential cost savings and conservation benefit... electricity is cheap and on-time prayers more important. But, I ask, isn't that what the muezzin is for?

I am told time after time in this country... Don't look for logic where none exists. I guess it's like that old saying "Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."