For me, the Imperial Persian Achaemenids are not some ancient kings of a forgotten empire; they are my childhood memories of chasing tiny lizards across the dusty plains of Persepolis under scorching summer sun while imagining the giants who once walked tall among high columns kissing the clouds; eating chelo-kabab in the cool basements of Esfahan and Shiraz kababis; drinking sweet tea in jasmine and cardamom-scented small tea-houses along the dusty roads that stretched from this side of Tehran to that side of Persepolis while listening to my father playfully matching wits with ‘illiterate’ old bards who could recite the entire epic poetry of the incomparable Ferdowsi’s Shâh Nâmeh: Book of Kings, by heart. The same great Ferdowsi who prophetically said: “The search for greatness deserves a hearty attempt, even though it means snatching it from the jaws of a dragon.” He himself snatched not greatness but immortality from the jaws of ignorance, when he almost single-handedly revived the magnificent Persian language that had gone silent for nearly 3 centuries after the Arab invaders of Iran in the 7th century forbade any tongue except Arabic to be spoken in the lands conquered by the blade of their swords. Other ancient cultures that were not so blessed with the likes of Ferdowsi, lost their ancient tongues and their ancient cultures to those of the invaders. They lost themselves. But not the Iranians, still favored by the ancient Wise Lord of the Persians... Images of the ruins of Persepolis no longer bring tears of lost glories to my eyes, but a golden pen dipped in an unspeakable pride in the ancient Achaemenids who sacrificed their own blood and submitted the sacred Persepolis to the will of their Wise God and the fire of remembrance, without ever admitting defeat in the hands of hordes and waves of invading barbarians.
A characteristic that remains to this day uniquely Iranian.
Past is never history... but a present that can be returned to when the next Great King arises... The love of the ancient Persia and the Achaemenids is written on the clay tablet of my heart. And that is the priceless value of the memory of the Great Kuruš and the world he brought under the sway of the magnificent Persians... While clay will turn into dust and dust will scatter in the wind, love will remain...
Forever wandering in the imaginary glittering halls of the beloved Pârsâ... tracing the footsteps of the ancient noble Persians... Kuruš was the first Great King of my fathers... Kuruš Nâmeh is written for my nephew, so that he will remember the Persians, and in the memory of my father, who never forgot them... while always remembering the advice of my mother, who said to me: “Do what you love and do it well.”
