In Tehran, Iran, parrots hear more than they let on. In these vignettes, Sepideh Karami and Elahe Karimnia take us into the imaginations of the curious, romantic and sometimes nosy birds.
Prelude
Cars rush along the highways. Taxis hoot around the crossroads. Passers-by slow down in the vicinity of street acrobats. Children pause by the mechanic shops. Beggars do their best to lay a guilt trip on the well-dressed citizens. Policemen ignore petty crimes. Cats tear open rubbish bags. Stray dogs cool off in narrow canals. Pickpockets scream about their bad luck. Developers, shading their eyes with their hands, check the cranes moving across the sky. Cranes swing in circles over the city; their unoiled joints send squeaks into the surrounding mountains. 1
Tehran. Lolling at the foot of the mountains and looking at her belly criss‑crossed by highways and narrow alleys. In a carefree manner, she is listening to the sounds of crimes, swear words, forbidden loves. She scratches her belly and burps. Its sound shakes the high‑rises and the tall trees. Snoozing parrots fly off the trees in old gardens and the sky becomes ornamented by their bright green drifting bodies.
O Tehran! Your love killed me.
Tehran and parrots have old sonic relationships. They say that the thousands of parrots flying around Tehran were brought to Iran from India at some point, and as non-migratory birds, they had to establish a life far from home. 2 This explains why, in Persian literature, parrots are the symbol of loneliness, exile, separation from one’s origin and infinite longing for home.
We all heard that parrots, as vocal learners, have the ability to imitate human speech. But what do they hear?
O Marjan! Your love killed me.
“Dash Akol” 3 , a short story by the Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat, ends with a parrot imitating the rough voice of its master and saying: “O Marjan! Your love killed me”. In the story, the secret confession of love is ultimately made by a parrot – the only companion to Dash Akol, the protagonist, the lover, who never dared to confess his love to Marjan. Drunk on grief and alcohol, Dash Akol dies after being stabbed in a fight on Marjan’s wedding night. His confession of love to Marjan, being only spoken to the mirror, was well memorised by the parrot that had witnessed his suffering and longing for over seven years. When the parrot in the cage was given to Marjan, after Dash Akol’s death, it knew how to send the message from the deceased lover.
Parrots have witnessed serious love stories. They have survived severe air and noise pollution. Those who found their way out of cages established homes on top of tall trees in the scattered gardens among the highways and high rises of the densely built city of Tehran. Over years, they have established a territory of their own. One which negates the walls and borders between inside and outside. From their vast and spacious territory, as high as the old tall trees, they have been observing and listening to this wildly growing megalopolis while knowing how small the possibility of finding a better home is.
We made it home! Invaded or confiscated, who cares!
But parrots care! They have listened to unspoken conversations around the transformation of the gardens; they have heard trees falling, dwellers leaving, flags changing, names and labels adjusting. They have listened to confessions of love.
Interlude
Parrot E Do you have any messages to your kinsmen in Tehran?
Parrot S Tell them I’m confined in a cage.
The parrots’ act of listening is performative. In the famous fable The Parrot and the Merchant, written by the 13th-century Persian poet and philosopher, Mowlana Rumi, this performative act of listening is the core of the story. A merchant, who keeps a parrot in a cage, is about to travel to India on business. He asks the parrot if he has any message to send to his kinsmen in that country. The parrot asks him to tell them that he/she was kept confined in a cage. The merchant promises to deliver this message, and on reaching India, duly delivers it to the first flock of parrots he sees. On hearing it, one of the parrots immediately falls down dead. The merchant is upset with his own parrot for having sent such a fatal message and on his return home sharply rebukes his parrot for doing so. But the parrot, on hearing the merchant’s tale, also falls down dead in his cage. The merchant, after lamenting his death, takes his corpse out of the cage and throws it away. To his surprise, the corpse immediately recovers life and flies away; the Indian parrot had only feigned death to suggest a means of escape from confinement.
Tehran witnesses the lovers longing for their homes, those fleeing heavy-heartedly, and those waiting restlessly. O Tehran! It is the lost lover in the cacophony of political, social and environmental crises, who has feigned death thousands of times. Parrots of Tehran have feigned death in order to escape their cages and to take refuge in the gardens. They have confessed the love of those in exile to Marjan, to Tehran, and turned those gardens into their own territories above the complex socio‑political structure of the city.
The short stories that follow narrate these de- and re-territorialisations. They take place in relation to three urban stages: an abandoned garden, an embassy and an abandoned barracks. These three places are not only representative of real places in Tehran where parrots live, but they also symbolically represent the stories of fleeing from one’s home, of separation, forced exile and longing. In these three places, parrots have developed sonic relationships with Tehran through mirroring, eavesdropping and fooling. Through these acts, they narrate the stories of many who had to flee from their homes and who ended up in never-ending longing for their lovers, from whom they were separated.
Acts
Cast of Characters
Parrot S A parrot that lives on the high trees of Tehran
Parrot E A parrot that lives on the high trees of Tehran
Scene 01
Abandoned Garden
Two parrots perching on high trees in an abandoned garden, recall and repeat the love stories between Marjan and her lover.
Parrot S Marjan, your love killed me!
Parrot E Marjan left the garden at dawn. I heard her from the tallest tree in this garden. I heard the heavy sound of her luggage dragging on the cement pathway in the garden. I heard: “Marjan, your love will kill me”. I heard a voice say: “Airport?” I heard her say: “Yes”.
Parrot S I heard the city rising to the dawn. The ebb and flow of the viscous matter of noises, humming sounds of the city rising to the speed of the megalopolis life. From here, I have heard stories, secrets, whispers, shouts, cries, lies and laughter. I’ve heard swearing, affectionate words, nonsense, songs, motorcycles and car engines. I have heard crows and cats fighting over pieces of food around the bins. I have heard all your lies and secrets. You remember? I bet you don’t want to.
Parrot E Oh, I heard a thief jump off the wall on the dried leaves.
Parrot S He’s not a thief. He is a lover. Marjan’s love killed him. I hear him every night.
[Parrot S covers head]
Parrot E Marjan your love killed me
Parrot S Marjan your love killed me
Parrot E Marjan your love killed me
Parrot S Marjan your love killed me
[Parrot S uncovers head]
Parrot E Shhh… I heard her giving him a box!
Parrot S I heard her say: “It is a dangerous thing!”
Parrot E I heard him say: “I would hide it in a safe place.”
Parrot S I heard her say: “Then how would you read it?”
Parrot E Then how would you read it? Then how would you read it? Then how would you read it?
[Parrot E covers head]
Parrot S I heard she said it was a book. I heard she said with dangerous poems. With magic words.
[Parrot E is silent]
Parrot S I hear him flipping through the book in the abandoned garden.
[Parrot E is silent]
Parrot S I hear him saying: Marjan your love killed me.
[Parrot E is silent]
Scene 02
Embassy
Two parrots, perching on high trees in an embassy garden, eavesdropping, looking through the CCTV camera and mirroring the visa decisions.
Parrot E The tall walls and barbed wires are still lower than the trees we live on. From these tall trees, we see how CCTV cameras change their directions, even when we fly around them. This is one of our games when we are bored. To fool. To fool CCTV cameras. From these tall trees, we have heard people in the queues to get their visas. We have heard the sound of stamps:
Parrot S Approved
Rejected
Approved
Rejected
Rejected
Rejected
Rejected
Approved
Rejected
Approved
[two parrots cover the CCTV cameras]
Parrot E [whispering] Do you know someone in the embassy to issue me a fake visa?
Parrot S [whispering] I know of one.
Parrot E Rejected
Parrot S Rejected
Parrot E Approved
Parrot S Approved?
Parrot E Approved
Scene 03
Abandoned Barracks
Two parrots, perching on high trees in an abandoned barracks in Tehran looking at marches during the day and at the soldier – Marjan’s lover – during the night, imitating and mirroring what they observe.
Parrot S آزاد
[Order, arms]
Free
Parrot E Freedom
Parrot S Far
Parrot E Far from
Parrot S Far from home in the free skies of this far land.
Parrot E We came here from far lands and we lived in fairy tales. We escaped from the confinement of the books to the high trees of these abandoned barracks. The fairy tales come back to us in the buried sounds of the barracks, soldiers marching, the general shouting, pauses and counting.
Parrot S And at night?
Parrot E Nights of missing, of longing.
Parrot S Longing for their lovers.
Parrot E The click of a lighter
The sound of inhaling [Parrot S inhales]
The sound of exhaling [Parrot S exhales]
Marjan, your love killed me!
Parrot S You heard it?
Parrot E I did!
Parrot S [Parrot’s act of mirroring/cadence count]
یک دو سه چهار
یک دو سه چهار
یک دو سه چهار
یک دو سه چهار
Parrot E The soldier is waiting!
Parrot S Waiting for what?
Parrot E He doesn’t know.
Parrot S [whispering] Marjan Your love killed me!
Parrot E He said it again.
Parrot S [whispering] Marjan your love killed me. 4
- Sepideh Karami, “The Door Left Ajar: On Dissident Writing and Collective Fiction”, in H. Frichot & N. Stead (eds.), Writing Architectures: Ficto-Critical Approaches (London: Bloomsbury, 2020) pp.220–21.
- “The Eupatria Psittaculas of Tehran (شاه طوطی های اصل تهرانی )”, Homa, no. 94 (2014). tehranshenasi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/شاه-طوطی-تهران.pdf. (Last accessed 04.01.2021)
- Dash Akol is an Iranian drama film directed by Masoud Kimiai in 1971. It was adopted from a short story of the same name written by the Iranian writer and intellectual Sadegh Hedayat in his short story collection Three Drops of Blood written in 1932.
- Special thanks to those who listened to the parrots and shared their stories with us: Katayoun Amoozgar, Babak Karami, Azadeh Karimnia, Mahbod Mehrin, Fatemeh Salahshour.