A Tribute to Mr. Ali-Akbar Dolafee
This memorandum captures in a small way the great respect I have for my sixth grade high school Farsi literature instructor (1976-77) Mr. Ali-Akbar Dolafee.
From my twelve years of Farsi formal education, I remember only two instructors with deep respect. I hold Mr. Dolafee in the highest esteem.
He sparked within me a love of Farsi. Surprisingly, I had regarded the topic with indifference until my last year of high school. On that year, I came to realize and see, through the far seeing eyes of our esteemed instructor, the depth, grandeur and the extraordinary beauty of the language we have inherited. This language in the hands of the masters of Farsi, reflecting Iranian and Islamic wisdom, such as Sadi (1213-91 A.D.), Hafiz (1320-90 A.D.), Ferdosee (940-1009 A.D.), Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-73 A.D.) and Bahar (?-1950 A.D.) required an interpreter of immense depth and sensitivity. Mr. Dolafee had both. He was himself a poet of significant abilities.
Even in high school, I took good care of my books, among which were my text books. A few years ago when my mother retured to Iran for a short visit after many years in Canada, I asked her to bring back for me all my Farsi text books which were stored in a dingy storage area in Tehran. At that time, I had realized that the Westerners had developed calculus, algebra, dynamics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine to great heights. Surely, I did not wish to burden my mother with the task of bringing back the translations of such subjects in Farsi, albeit, they were my text books and contained comments in my handwriting and would have served as a reminder of my precious six years of high school studying in Alborz.
However, I considered my Farsi text books as the quintessence of what Iran was to me and could be carried to North America. The text books in which every story and poem was, as I realize today, selected with the greatest care for the children of our culture to ponder and consider, a distillation of thousand years of experience by one of the central cultures of Middle East at the cross roads of history. Please remember that my love of Farsi grew very slowly and that surprisingly enough in North America, through a period of twenty years. The seeds of love and insight that Mr. Dolafee planted in 1976 in me did not sprout until about a year ago.
The Farsi text books that my mother brought back collected dust on my book shelves in Canada, though I was becoming gradually attracted to them from the very beginning of their arrival at my home. After Mr. Dolafee had explained the obscure terms of the preface to Kaleeleh-oh-Demneh by Borzooyeh Hakeem ( a text from prior to 910 A.D.), I loved the essay even when I was in high school. Remembering the enjoyment I derived from reading and rereading the convoluted but profound text of this preface, in high school, I picked up the passage again to relive the past. Instead, I learned about the present. In this process, I was assisted with the remembrance of the kindly smile of a gentle and learned Mr. Dolafee and the explanation of various words and turns of expression which was transcribed, as he had voiced them then, in my handwriting in the margin and among the lines of the text. Yes, I could relive the happy hours of my high school and with the advantage of being twenty years older I could see where Borzooyeh's logic failed and was inapplicable today. Nonetheless, I loved the prose for its force and beauty.
From this positive experience, I turned to other pages of my sixth grade Farsi text book and then I reread, thoroughly, the interesting passages of all my text books from the third grade elementary school onwards.
Every passage I read, I thanked my stars for the opportunity to have been under the brief tutelage of Mr. Dolafee as his student. His explanations, penciled by me all over the text, were to the point and highly illuminating. I realized that I would have understood almost nothing of the passages, if I had not the rudimentary training that Mr. Dolafee had imparted. And how much poorer would I have been if I had lost this very tenuous link with my past. Even my father, though educated of some stripe, could not explain some of these passages to me. Thank you Mr. Dolafee for nourishing my roots and allowing me to stand on my two feet as a member of human family.
I would like to close this protracted tribute---I hope the reader will forgive me my sentimentality and will not cringe at my personal account---with a line from a beautiful poem which Mr. Dolafee had written in his book of poetry. I have recited this line many times in the past twenty years, and I believe this moving snippet of a stanza will remain with me until the end of my days.
doost dauram shaam bausham dar deleh shabha besoozam
roshanee bakhsham meeyaneh jaam-o-khod tanha besoozamI love to be a candle burning in the midst of darkness
giving light to all those who are gathered and burning the self alone
Said Rashed Marandi
December 13, 1997
Saint Lambert, Quebec
