Being Cheated Out Of Life

An old friend's personal tale in Iran: If you’re an Iranian who wants to study the galaxy, you have to overthrow the regime first.

A few years ago, my Mom was going to send me a parcel from Iran. She went to a printing shop to get a label with my name and address on it. Later that day, she called me and brought up a name, asking me whether I knew him. I did.

He was a classmate of mine. Not just that. At Iran’s old and under-financed schools, at least when I still was there, they used benches, not chairs. And we sat at the same bench for a year. Not a particularly close friend, but still friends. Let’s call him MJ.

He and I couldn’t be more different. I came from an upper-middle-class old (and mostly gone) money family of intellectuals. He was working class. I was terrible at school. He did great at his studies. I was raised atheist. He and his family were religious.