Our first migration to Karaj was in 1929; after my father’s dispute with the Dorvani people escalated, we didn’t stay there anymore. Shortly after, we had some cheese, loaded it onto a cart, and went to Karaj. The cheese was almost a hundred kilograms; my father sold all of it to his cousin. He told him that he wanted to stay there, and his cousin agreed, saying, ‘It’s okay.’ After that, we returned to Dorvan; we stayed there for the winter and spring and migrated again in the summer of 1929.
In Karaj, my father bought a shop for Thirty tomans, across from Kamali shopping center, on the other side of the street. I returned to Dorvan again, and my father stayed. It was a little before the new year eve when he sent a message asking me to go back, in 1929. I was his eldest son, and he had a lot of affection for me. That year, there was a lot of snow; my uncle gave me a ride on a cart and took me to Karaj. It was so cold that my clothes were frozen to my body. When we arrived, we couldn’t take off the clothes because they were frozen on me. Next to my father’s shop, there was a coffeehouse; they took me there, brought charcoal and firewood, lit a fire, and kept me around the fire until the ice melted.
That night, I saw oranges for the first time; I hadn’t seen them or known what they were before. Those who were in the coffeehouse had oranges, and someone peeled one for me, and I ate it. Oranges were a rare fruit in those days; they had mandarins, but not oranges.
At that time, my father and I used to sleep in the shop at night. That same year, on Wednesday night (Chaharshanbe Suri), I said I wanted to play with fireworks. My father said he didn’t have charcoal or firewood to burn. I didn’t listen and kept making noise. Our neighbor had a grocery store; he came and asked, ‘What’s going on? What does this child want?’ My father explained the situation to him, and he said, ‘I have firewood; I’ll bring it.’ At that time, they imported sugar from Belgium, and to prevent the sugar from clumping, they put it in cones. Our neighbor had some leftover sugar cones; they brought them, made seven cones, poured oil, and set them on fire. I started jumping over the fire, and someone behind me jumped too. In the process, we collided, and the heel of his shoe hit my leg, right above my ankle. It felt like being pierced with a hot iron rod, and I screamed in pain. My father initially thought I had caught fire and rushed out. My leg was broken; it was dangling. That night, I cried in that shop, and my father cried too.
In the morning, the neighbors suggested taking me to Tehran. At that time, there were no doctors and medicine like now. In the meantime, someone had a splint, and they finally went and brought it. They took me to the neighbor’s caravanserai; some Dorvani people were there too. An old man with a splint ordered them to hold me firmly, and then he began pulling my leg. If he didn’t do this, my leg could have become shorter. When someone’s leg breaks, the muscles contract, bones get misaligned, and they fuse that way. In short, he pulled my leg until the bones aligned, and it was excruciatingly painful. I kept cursing and yelling, ‘Let go of my leg! Let go of my leg!’ In the end, they made a bandage with egg yolk and a medicinal plant, placed it on my leg, and secured it with a piece of wood. I spent the rest of the night hobbling around on my own.
In the summer, we rented a house in Deh-e Karaj, next to the mosque; my mother and siblings also came. On the way, my mother fell off the cart, and her hands broke in several places. We struggled with these fractures for a long time, and in the end, they didn’t heal properly; her hand wouldn’t come up above her head.