Baba Taher's khoshā emshō

Leyla: Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation, shabé she'r with Yara and Baba Taher

Okay, hello and welcome to another shabé she'r with Yara. Yara, thank you for joining me again!

Yara: Thanks for having me!

Leyla: And today, we are going to talk about another poet that might be a little bit less familiar to people, definitely to me, and that is Baba Taher. So, Yara, had you heard of Baba Taher before?

Yara: No, I have not. I mean, I had heard Rudaki’s name definitely in Tehran and on street signs and whatever, but definitely not Baba Taher. I had zero idea!

Leyla: Oh, amazing! Okay, so I had heard of Baba Taher a little bit because my grandfather was very into him and in the book that I mentioned before that my grandfather wrote for every member of the family, Baba Taher comes in here a lot, and he would often talk about how Baba Taher just had a very simple manual for life, and he was from Hamedan. So if you go to Hamedan, he has a huge shrine there. So just like Saadi does in Shiraz, and a lot of the poets have in different cities, he has a huge shrine there. Have you been to Hamedan before?

Yara: You know, funnily enough, yeah! I must have been six or seven years old, but I do remember it. And one of the biggest attractions in that town, I mean, it's possible we went to the Baba Taher shrine, but the one thing I remember from Hamadan is the ghāré alisadr, which is the Ali-Sadr Cave. It's an underground cave, there's water, you take a boat, and you're underground in a boat.

Leyla: Cool, and you probably go to, like, a coffee shop in the cave, right?

Yara: Maybe today. Maybe today they've done that. 25 years ago, I don't think that was…yeah, I just remember the cave. I remember the person rowing the boat for us. We were just stuck in this cave.

Leyla: Okay!

Yara: Yeah. Anyways, it was fun! It was a fun time.

Leyla: Okay, well, so the little bit of research that I've done about Baba Taher…bābā wasn't actually his name. It's just a term of respect, meaning that he's wise or an elder, the respected, and he was from the 11th century, and he's super mysterious. Like they really do not know much about his life, but his poems are also written in the Hamedani dialect, so you'll hear that in this poem that we're going to read right now. It has some of that different dialect.

He also lived a very spiritual and stoic lifestyle. Like the whole name Baba Taher Oryan, oryān means ‘naked’. So he kind of gave away the worldly possessions. He didn't have nice clothing, unlike Rudaki. Actually, I didn't mention that in the last shabé she'r that we did. Rudaki was very prosperous. He had a lot of money. He lived in castles and with the kings and stuff, and Baba Taher was the exact opposite. He was kind of an ascetic and didn't have worldly possessions. Yes. And he was a stoic, which is very popular these days. I don't know if you hear about stoicism all the time, but. 

Yara: I mean, I've met stoic people and there have, yes, but definitely stoicism is a movement today.

Leyla: I guess, oh my gosh, yes. In Austin, we have this guy who has moved here recently, Ryan Holiday. A lot of guys have moved here recently, I'm sure you heard!

Yara: Yes, ATX is the… I see that written everywhere now!

Leyla: Oh my goodness, so he's brought back the Stoic movement, and actually, maybe we could talk about this a little bit because it might have to do with Baba Taher’s life. Stoicism is always very popular in times that are a little bit tumultuous, so like what we're going through right now, and basically, the philosophy is that you can't control what happens outside, but you can control how you react to what happens. So I think that that is a big theme in Persian poetry in general. There might be things happening around, but don't worry yourself with things. Just live in the present; live in the moment.

Yara: Interesting! You cannot control. Ooh, I like this idea! You can control your reaction to something bad, but you cannot control the bad thing happening.

Leyla: Exactly, exactly, so maybe he'll go out and pick up the book of Epictetus after this! That's one of the big Stoic philosophers, but so is Baba Taher, and we're with Baba Taher right now! So like we did in the last episode of shabé she'r, Yara is going to read the poem with his beautiful Persian reading voice.

Yara: You’re really, really kind. Oh gosh, some Iranian poet is going to be like that “that guy's not any good!”

Leyla: Always! And then I'm gonna read the translation, which actually, we don't have the translation, so I'm just gonna make it up on the spot, and then we're gonna go through line by line and talk about the words. In this session, we're just going to talk about the meaning behind the poem. In the next podcast, I'm going to go over the individual words and phrases, how you can use them in your own conversational Persian speaking to elevate your Persian-ness and your talking, your speaking in the Persian language because that's what these poems do. They help us to learn new words, new concepts, how to talk to our fellow humans. So with not much further ado…oh, I do want to say one other thing. I found a poem. Shakila is an Iranian singer. Were you familiar with her before?

Yara: Not really. Again, one of those things I'd heard. It's “oh, play Shakila!” Maybe somebody yelled it across the room at a mehmooni at some occasion, but I'm not as familiar as Googoosh and Hayedeh and some of the other ones, yeah.

Leyla: Right. Well, she's from a lot later so I was probably in my, like, teens or something, maybe a little bit earlier when in the United States, Iranian TV started becoming really popular, and she was in that period of time, so probably like in the 90s, like early 90s or something.

Yara: Oh, so more of a diaspora singer.

Leyla: Oh yeah, she definitely is. Yeah, she's from California, but she started singing classical music, so she was very different than these people that came at the same time like Sepideh or whatever, very pop-y singers. So I think that maybe she's like a little bit less known now, but she has a version of this song that we'll link to on this podcast as well. So without further ado, go ahead!

Yara: Okay!

khoshā emshō ké mehmooné shomā-yom!

kabootar vār bar boomé shomā-yom.

torshrooyee makon, mehmooné azeez!

khodā dooné ké fardā shō kojā-yom!

Leyla: Beautiful, so I'm going to try to translate this on the spot. So:

Be glad tonight because I am your guest!

Like a bird, I am sitting on your balcony.

Don't, torshrooyee, don't have a bad attitude, my dear guests, or because a guest is dear, right?

Lord knows where I'll be tomorrow night!

Yara: Perfect. Yeah, that's a same read on this one as you. Yeah, no difference whatsoever.

Leyla: Cool, cool, so the first thing I wanna mention is that the word “shab” is a very popular Persian word because it means ‘night’. It's a very simple word, and in this poem, we hear the word ‘night’ a lot, but it doesn't sound like that. So that's an example of that Hamedani accent. So instead of “shab,” what does he use? 

Yara: Oh, I didn't, I didn't actually get that!

Leyla: Oh, it's “shō.” “shō” is “shab.”

Yara: Oh, interesting!

Leyla: So “emshō," that is just a dialect thing.

Yara: I read that as “fardā-rō," “fardā shō,” or like “fardā shō-rā.” Interesting, but no, that makes more sense because that's the Hamedani thing. “fardā shab kojā?” 'Oh, it's unclear where I am tomorrow.' Oh, okay!

Leyla: Like “emshō shō-é shé, da-da-da-da.” You know that popular song?

Yara: Oh yeah, “emshō,” okay. Ooh, okay, “khoshā emshab,” ahh, my brain! 

Leyla: Ah, so we taught Yara something! Okay, cool!

Yara: Oh, there's many things I don't know. Yeah!

Leyla: Okay, so "khoshā emshō." That means ‘be glad tonight!’ or ‘it's a happy night’. “khosh” is the word for ‘happy’ or ‘glad’. “emshō ké mehmooné shomā-yom.” “mehmoon” is the word for ‘guest’, so ‘I am your guest'. And then “kabootar vār,” so “vār” is the word for “meslé” or ‘like’. So “kabootar,” what's the direct translation for “kabootar”? 

Yara: Is it ‘pigeon’?

Leyla: ‘Pigeon’, yeah, is that what it is? I think so, yeah, ‘pidgin’.

Yara: I think so, yeah, pigeon.

Leyla: But in Iran, pigeons aren't gross. They're just, like, “kabootar.” It's a sweet…

Yara: It’s a nice bird! Is it a pigeon? Yeah. Or is it a dove? No, I don't know. I get all the birds mixed up. Oh my gosh, help me…

Leyla: Yeah, let's look this up!

Yara: Yeah, 'cause I… “kabootar.” “kabootar,” ‘pigeon’, let's see…

Leyla: And while you're looking that up, I'll say “boom” is the word for, like, “poshté boom” means your ‘rooftop’, so your ’balcony' or your ‘rooftop’.

Yara: “kabootar,” hold on, I'm still on the “kabootar”! Okay, so yes, I'm getting ‘pigeon’. Yes, pigeon pictures.

Leyla: Yeah, ‘pidgeons’! But we don't have gross pigeons, and here, it's seen as a very negative thing, but it is more like a dove or pretty bird.

Yara: Yeah, totally, “kabootar,” it's so pretty, but here, because a pigeon is very pest-like… “pigeon!” Even the word “pigeonhole,” “pigeonhole” this and that… Anyways, yeah, whatever, it's not…

Leyla: No, no, no, no. So “kabootar vār,” so ‘like a pigeon, I'm sitting on your balcony’, so like a pleasant bird that comes by. So 'I'm your guest, just like that little bird would be your guest', which actually reminds me, my yoga teacher passed away a few years ago, but he would always say that you should never eat alone. When the company you eat with is just as important as the food that you're eating, you're not going to get nutrition if you're just eating by yourself, but he was like “if you do have to eat by yourself, go outside and sit next to a pigeon and eat.”

Yara: Oh, I love that; that's so cute! Yeah, you have the company! No, absolutely, that's my favorite part of eating: having people. Honestly, the people are more important than the food.

Leyla: 100%, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I miss that a lot about our class. We would always go and eat together afterwards and just have this big feast, a lot of fun. Anyhow, so:

khoshā emshō ké mehmooné shomā-yom!

kabootar vār bar boomé shomā-yom.

So again:

What a good night that I'm your guest!

And:

Like a pigeon, I'm sitting on your balcony.

Okay, do you want to do the next part?

Yara: So, 

torshrooyee makon, mehmooné azeez!

That one, if we were to do a literal translation:

Don't be sour-faced, o dear guest!

But ‘sour face’ in this sense would be, you know, 'don't have a bad attitude', 'don't be mean'; I don't know, something like that, ‘o dear guest!’. And then the next part:

khodā dooné ké fardā shō kojā-yom!

So:

God knows where I will be tomorrow night!

So my understanding of this was, you know, 'don't be salty', 'don't have a bad attitude'.

Leyla: ‘Be salty’, that's a good way to put it! Yeah, that's exactly what it is because "torsh" literally means, what's the...?

Yara: ‘Sour’…

Leyla: ‘Sour’?

Yara: Yeah, ‘sour’, I guess, right? ‘Sour’, ‘salt’, whatever, every language is picking a sense of flavor.

Leyla: Like, “torshee” is ‘pickled’.

Yara: Yeah.

Leyla: So 'don't be pickled!' 'Don't be salty!' That’s exactly it.

Yara: Yeah, 'don't be salty about', you know, 'don't be salty, o dear guest!'. Like, who knows where I'll be! I might be dead tomorrow, you know; I might be gone tomorrow.

Leyla: Yeah, totally, which is another “in the moment” thing. This is funny how much we can relate to this a lot of times. Right now, we've been going through this period of time where we haven't been able to see each other because of the coronavirus, but before that, there's a lot of times when we're like “oh, I have so much to do, and this person is like at my house, and ugh, I just want to get to what I'm doing!” but then that's exactly what this person is saying. 'No, tonight, let's just be glad. Let's be happy with each other's company because who knows what tomorrow will bring?'

Yara: Totally.

Leyla: Who knows when the coronavirus will shut down the world? And you cannot sit in someone's house for two years!

Yara: Right, it's just appreciating people in the moment because nothing in life is really permanent, whether it's a relative, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a friend who might move away from town, again a relationship, a breakup that might happen, or, God forbid, a relative that might pass away. It's just like, let's enjoy this time together. Don't have a bad attitude! Don't make faces at me! Let's just talk and enjoy each other, and then tomorrow, I will fly away like the pigeon. Who knows?

Leyla: Right, that's true. Yeah, exactly, exactly, and again, it's crazy how relatable something written in 11th-century Persian can be to us living in the West now, and it's a very relatable topic for everybody in the world.

Yara: Yes, it is. It is the Don't Look Up of Persian poetry, if I can make a pop culture reference. Have you seen that movie?

Leyla: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yara: Yeah, because it was, it was made, I think, without the pandemic in mind, right? So you're seeing the social media reaction to climate change, and I don't believe the pandemic was… what ended up happening is they released it during the pandemic, and the politicization of the pandemic was very similar to the politicization of climate change, so it actually gained further resonance, which is one of the reasons I would assume it blew up even more on Netflix. Netflix? I think that's what it was.

Leyla: Yeah, yeah. Wow! Okay, no, I didn’t know.

Yara: Anywho, Baba Taher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Spirit Brothers, I don't know, whatever.

Leyla: Awesome! Well, there's another shabé she'r poem, and like we said, the next episode, I'll come back and we'll go over a lot of words in here that we can learn, and then we'll learn what the difference between that Hamedani dialect is and how we can relate it to modern colloquial Persian. So that’ll be next time. So thank you, Yara, for another shabé she'r!

Yara: Thank you, Leyla, for having me!

Leyla: Until next time!