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“ ‘They have removed our hats’, an Iranian way of saying ‘we have been cheated’

 ‘They have put hats on our heads’, another Iranian way of saying, we have been cheated’”.

 We have been reading French Hats in Iran (2011) by Heydar Radjavi, a mathematician of some repute born in 1935 and now living in Canada with his Canadian wife. He has always had a   love of literature although he is best known for his work on obscure mathematical subjects. However, he also loved to tell stories about his early life in Tobriz until he lived until he went to university, and his wife and children urged him to publish them, and this collection of mini tales is the result.

Each story can be read independently but together they build up a picture of everyday life in Iran in the ‘30s and ‘40s – a time of tension between the traditionalists and the Shah’s attempts to modernise.

The French hats (Frangi) symbolise this conflict. The Shah forbade both men and women to cover their heads and had policemen on motor scooters to enforce this. They were, however, allowed to wear the modern French hats although most women preferred to stay indoors rather than expose their faces. The theme of hats and head coverings runs through many of the stories.

Radjavi has brought his childhood vividly to life with all the humour and contradictions of growing up in a strict traditionalist family. His elderly father ran his household according to unbending religious precepts, but his resourceful mother and her friends found ways to enjoy such forbidden frivolities as music and dancing and to eat sweetmeats and engage in gossip and laughter together. There is humour in the way the fundamentalists tied themselves up in knots over religious rules – is a woman’s wig ahead covering, or not? for instance. Do animals depicted in art have souls?

One of the most shocking tales is the first one, in which his nine-year-old playmate is married (illegally) and had to leave her own family to live in seclusion with her groom’s family. She cried passionately for her pet cat which her strict father-in-law would not allow because he considered it unclean. The marriage however turned out to be a happy one with a gradual relaxation of rules after her father-in-law’s death until here granddaughters are able to go to university and wear Western clothes.

These are stories of a largely happy childhood in which he and his friends are inventive in finding ways to subvert the rules and enjoy themselves. Forbidden to go to the movies, they discover how to make their own film show much appreciated by their mother and the other women. It is a rich and loving enorinmen. The tone is light-hearted and humorous and sheds light on what is happening in Iran today. It can be dipped in and out of and is easy and pleasant to read.