Salamatiran Personal essays, notes, and ideas worth sharing. Browse Latest Posts This is my corner of the internet. I write about whatever’s on my mind…
The Notebook Where Farsi and English Stopped Translating
The price sticker on the back says ۳٬۵۰۰ تومان. Mehran stationery, spiral-bound, grid paper, 120 pages. I bought it on Jomhuri Street in Tehran in…
How Music Becomes a Transport Device for Memory
There is a cassette tape in my mother’s kitchen drawer in Tehran, its label written in my grandmother’s hand: Googoosh, 1352, Mehrabad. I have not…
Why Handwritten Notes Carry Weight That Digital Messages Cannot
There is a particular weight to a handwritten note that no digital message can replicate. It is not nostalgia, exactly. It is the weight of…
The First Draft of a Family Story Is Always Spoken
My father’s voice changes when he switches from English to Farsi mid-sentence. Not gradually. It happens at a hinge — a word he cannot find…
The Difference Between Adaptation and Assimilation
Adaptation is learning to carry your own tea glass through a new city without spilling. Assimilation is pretending you never liked tea at all. For…