"The journey between what you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place."
Barbara Deangelis
Barbara Deangelis
I was born to a middle class family in a second most populated city in Iran, Mashhad. In my early days, like everybody else, I was almost convinced that one day I would finish school, follow the footsteps of my father and find a girl that I would marry and spend the rest of my life with. A true Iranian dream.
I was never too big on having too many friends. So I kept myself busy with a few friends I had. There were four of us. Arash, Koorosh, Mohsen and myself. I was the youngest among my friends. Even to this day, most of my close friends are much older than me.
"The four idiots" - The year is 2005
top: Mohsen (left), Koorosh (right). seated: Myself (left), Arash (right)
If you ask me, a single phone call is responsible for shattering my Iranian dream and instead setting me off down the road I am today. My phone started to ring on a Friday morning. I wasn’t too pleased. Fridays are the only weekend we get back in Iran. I heard a girl speaking on the other end. She was speaking a foreign language I couldn't understand. She was speaking English. After much struggle, I remembered a few words thought in school. 'Hi', 'I don't speak english', 'good bye'. She'd made that call from India to a number she had found online. She was my first english teacher from then on.
Few months later, and I wanted to get away. Somewhere far away. Somewhere like Malaysia. Since then, I've never looked back. I've been away from my hometown now a little close to six years. Never would have had it any other way. I was introduced to this whole new world: cruel but exciting.
