Rating:
I have never been to Tehran, at least not to this day. But, every single time I read about Tehran, I feel a sense of longing – to visit Tehran someday. The Stationery Shop only increased that urge. I googled stuff such as “Is Tehran safe for Indians?” And started checking round-trip flight prices from New Delhi to Tehran.
“Roya’s mother had always said that our fate is written on our foreheads when we’re born. It can’t be seen, can’t be read, but it’s there in invisible ink all right, and life follows that fate. No matter what.” We say something similar in my culture too. Mom, grandma, and other ladies often said, “It was written. It was meant to be. They were supposed to start a family.” They say soi-yak-mo which literally translates to something that is written or something that someone already wrote.
“Baba was remarkably, exceptionally enlightened for his time: he wanted his girls to be educated and to succeed.” I have a younger sister, and whenever I talk to my mom, I make sure to stress – that we don’t have many girls in the extended family, so if she’s willing to put in the work, I’ll make sure that she does better than me. The way I think about it is: if she can get the best education, the exposure one needs for character development, she can go back home and change the lives of so many women around her.
“Politics had seeped into every classroom.” This was said in the context of the changing political climate in Iran. I remember reading somewhere that politics should be kept out of institutions such as IITs, IIMs, IISc, etc., a few weeks ago. While I understand the spirit of that statement, I disagree. Why? For the simple reason that if academic institutions stopped their students from speaking their minds, what purpose are they serving? I find the whole argument of leaving social reality out of “intellectual discussions” quite baffling.
I’m not saying institutions should mandatorily ask every student to speak on social or political matters. But, they should also not stop discussions on issues in society. Whether students choose to stay ignorant about matters is up to them, but I don’t think faculty and institutions should advocate for classrooms free of discussions on inconvenient truths.
Roya’s favorite place in all of Tehran was the Stationery Shop.
CAFÉ GHANADI: I don’t know if this is a real place. But if it is, I’ll love to go there if I ever visit Tehran.
“…you’re going to have a happy marriage, you need to please your mother-in-law. That is what every woman knows as God’s indisputable truth!”
“Roya knew an America that was sparkling and filled with glamorous people who kissed a lot.” Where is the lie?
“You might think that the world is complicated and full of lost souls, that people who’ve touched your life and disappeared will never be found, but in the end all of that can change. One shop, one glass of tea, and all of that can simply flip.” Word.
“She would not have understood, then, that time is not linear but circular. There is no past, present, future.” By the time I got to this point in the book, I started breathing heavily and almost teared up. A deep sense of “this hit too close to home” overtook me. You know a book is good when you feel that. I know things are a bit exaggerated in the book, but I could not help but think that on this planet of billions of people, events such as the one that transpired in the book must happen to many people, even if not identical.
The past was always there, lurking in the corners, winking at you when you thought you’d moved on, hanging on to your organs from the inside.
I wanted to stir up my reading, so I resorted to what I know best – mix genres; keep reading until you form a reading habit. I picked up The Stationery Shop of Tehran in the process. It has been on my Kindle for quite some time, but I never got to reading it until now. I finished the book in a few sittings and would recommend that you also read it.
You can check out my bucket list (containing my wish for a trip to Tehran).
You can think of them as extended book reviews by me.
My book notes differ from traditional book reviews in the sense that I (mostly) do not make recommendations about whether you should read a book.
In addition, where possible, I try to provide anecdotes from my own life to convey why a certain snippet of a book resonated with me.
You can find other book notes here.
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