Darde Ghorbat

In this personal essay for Off Assignment’s No Equivalent series, Iranian-American writer Yasmin Roshanian reflects on darde ghorbat, a Farsi phrase that means “the sorrow of exile,” and what it means to inherit a homeland she’s never visited. Roshanian writes about having no interest in her family’s culture when growing up, and how her Farsi speaking skills slowly faded away. She also writes about grief across her family’s generations—including the inability to communicate with her grandparents, and her fear of not being able to pass Farsi or Iranian culture down to her future children—and whether she can reclaim what is slipping away.

Like most teenagers, I knew what I liked, and I didn’t want to be different. I would watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls and Dawson’s Creek; teen TV that defined my coming of age. I was envious of Buffy’s perfect blonde hair, the ease of Joey’s name. My friends, too, could talk to their grandparents, forming a closeness I couldn’t replicate with my own. I remember my best friend at the time listening to Eminem with her grandmother, sharing in the secret of a forbidden CD her mother probably wouldn’t approve of. This was a language between them, a home, and I had no such secrets with my maman-bozorg. The contradictions were endless: Even when I tried so hard to corrode their Iran from myself, I was desperate for their secrets—this currency of love enveloped in a small act of rebellion. I wanted to sink myself into Farsi and find my grandparents at the other end. My friends had it so easy. So good. They had one language, one world, and everything was simple. I longed to go there.