Mazyar Fallahi

My favorite Persian singer ever! When I was in Iran, I've been given a chance to go to his concert. It was unforgettable experience ever! The concert was totally different from other concerts I ever attended. All nicely organized, from the sound, timing, manner of viewers, everything. Unlike other concert where viewers went crazy, drunk, dancing which I hate of course. This one was more to my liking. Por az ehsas (full of feelings). And oh! the band was excellent, they are all experts! I was sitting on the 4th row and I saw everything was well managed. All in all I am satisfied with this concert. I hope Mazyar will come to Malaysia in the future and of course I will go to his concert again! I have to mention here, to thanks my bff for this surprise. Really appreciate it! Love. I recorded some videos which I combined in below clip. Enjoys!

Beats of Heart "top top"

"Godrat daste shomast..in ghalbam mizane top top vase shomast" - Barobax

Yada yada...the feeling of love..the beats of heart..anyone can hear? I am in love. Man ashegh shodam.

I'll get ya!!!!!!

Top top top...ghalbam mizane ton ton akh! defa daram!!! ghalbam dobare misuze!!

(top top top is the sound of my heart, it is beating fast, I'll have defense. damn. my heart goin to burn again) :))

Beef Bistik

We received some meat during hari raya qurban. I've cooked daging masak kicap, today i craved for bistik. So here is the recipe.

Ingredients: 

- 1/2 kg beef - cubed

- 2 medium onion*

- 3 garlic cloves*

- 1 inch ginger*

- 4 friends (cinnamon stick, cardamom, clove, star anise)

- 2 bay leaves

- 4 tbsp curry powder

- 3/4 cup soya sauce

- 3/4 cup ketchup 

- water

- oil

- salt

1. Blend all * ingredients. 

2. In a pot, heat some oil, fry the 4 friends til aroma rise, add in the blended ingredients. Fry until all water dry. Add in curry powder. Fry until fragrant.

3. Add in the meat, fry until all sides brown. 

4. Add in soya sauce and ketchup. 

5. Pour some water covering all the meat. 

6. Let it boil, cover the lid, slow down heat and let it simmer for 2 hours.

7. Taste with salt. After 2 hours, the meat will be well cooked and the sauce thickened. 

8. Serve with french baguette.

How Sanctions Affected Iranians' Life

I believe that the entire world know about sanctions in Iran. In fact, that was the first question my brother asked me when I came back from Iran. I experienced how sanctions had affected Iranians' life. Bausch & Lomb soft lens multi purpose solution 120ml was sold double price as it is in Malaysia because it is considered medicinal thing and there's no over counter (except pharmacy) cough lozenge such as strepsils or fishermen's friend that easily can be found at groceries shop or petrol station in malaysia. *I don't know if it's available only I didn't find it. I am so sad. The reality is that sanctions had affected humanity. Just imagine that this sh**t happens in our country. How our normal life will affected? It won't be better but surely harder. 

Today I stumbled upon this website http://ajammc.com/ and my tears dropped upon reading one of its current article about sanctions in Iran. The 15th point really hurt me to know that my country's airline, Air Asia stopped its KL-Tehran route to comply with sanctions. What a shame! I copy paste it here. Not sure whether it is allowed or no but I think I have to share this. The link 

15 Ways Sanctions Hurt Ordinary Iranians

POSTED BY AJAM MEDIA COLLECTIVE ⋅ OCTOBER 3, 2013 ⋅ 2 COMMENTS

FILED UNDER  DIASPORA, HUMANITARIAN, IRAN, IRAN-IRAQ WAR, LIFE, MIDDLE EAST, OBAMA, PHOTO ESSAY, PHOTOGRAPHY, POLITICS,ROUHANI, SANCTIONS, SANCTIONS ON IRAN, TEHRAN, TRAVEL, UNITED NATIONS, USA, WAR

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been placed under increasingly harsh rounds of sanctions by the US, the European Union, and theUnited Nations. The latest and strongest round of these sanctions were enacted during the early years of the Obama administration, and have made life increasingly difficult for average Iranians. Although a few sanctions were lifted this summer, the remaining sanctions continue to have a destructive effect on the ordinary lives of Iranians.

Sanctions have an especially tragic history in the Middle East. Their devastating humanitarian impact upon Iraqi society caused proponents of sanctions to begin advocating for a supposedly “smart” variety intended to “target” only governments; in this case, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet their increasingly widespread effects upon Iranian society today show this rhetoric to have been disingenuous, as ordinary Iranians bear the brunt of these sanctions. We are once again reminded of the inhumanity of collective punishment; of the fact that sanctions ultimately don’t “target,” they spread and ensnare instead.

These sanctions have significantly affected the lives of Iranians living in Iran as well as in the diaspora. Life essentials, such as the capacity for travel, education, the sending of remittances, and even access to medicine are increasingly limited for average Iranians.

Yet it can sometimes be hard to appreciate the impact of these sanctions in everyday terms. We’ve compiled a list of 15 photographs to help illustrate these impacts.

1. Sanctions have sent the Iranian economy into a series of shocks, causing massive inflation.

This has lead to a serious devaluation of the rial that has wreaked havoc on the purchasing power of ordinary Iranians.

2. Sanctions have created medicine shortages in Iran, leaving hundreds of thousands without access to vital medications.

Those medicines still available, meanwhile, are often prohibitively expensive due to the currency collapse. The result has been many easily preventable deaths.

Manouchehr Esmaili-Liousi is one of them. He didn’t have access to his hemophilia medicine and was reported as the first death directly caused by sanctions. He was fifteen. Many medicines for hemophilia and thalassemia, and other serious diseases have become extremely rare and highly expensive because of sanctions.

3. Due to sanctions, birth control pills – once available, accessible, and affordable – have become virtually non-existent.

Instead, cheaply made and sometimes dangerous substitutes have flooded the markets.

These include brands like Yaz and Yasmine, the same pills that are facing multiple major lawsuits in the US because their use has been linked to heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, and blood clots in women.

4. Iranian veterans of the Iran-Iraq war and survivors of chemical weapons attack increasingly don’t have access to vital treatments needed for their survival.

Iran is home to 100,000+ victims of chemical warfare, more than any other country in the world. While thousands of Iranians died instantly following the chemical weapons attacks, Iran’s tens of thousands of survivors face a wide range of long-term effects, including extremely high rates of respiratory ailments, skin and eye problems, fertility and reproductive disorders, and cancer.

5. Basic medicines such as Advil and Tylenol are increasingly out of reach and difficult to find in Iran.

So instead of taking gifts, in many cases Iranians abroad have resorted to filling their luggage with over-the-counter meds to take their families in Iran.

6. Because of sanctions, Tehran has been experiencing the worst pollution it’s ever had.

In 2010, US sanctions were implemented against Iranian imports of refined gasoline. This meant that the country had to immediately come up with a way to refine its own. The ad hoc replacement is of a dramatically lower quality, and as a result levels of air pollution (and deaths from respiratory diseases) have skyrocketed in cities across the country. In Tehran, there were less than 150 days of “healthy air” in 2011, down from 300 in 2009.

The pollution has gotten so bad that Tehran’s governor has even at times shut down the city for people’s safety and health. This dramatic decline follows years after which air quality in Iranian cities was getting better, due to a combination of increased government investment in public transit, cleaner fuels, and better industrial technology.

In major cities, smog has gotten so bad that people often resort to wearing face masks in public to protect themselves.

7. Some ideas in Iran are literally not worth the paper that they are printed on! 

Many can’t afford simple things, like the cost of paper. What is more, the cost of imported paper has risen sharply due to the devalued rial and led to what Iranian media have termed a “paper crisis.”

This has been linked to the bankruptcy of an estimated 100 independent publishers. The government continues to subsidize many publishers, but the widespread shutdown of independent publishers means that that the variety of ideas being published is increasingly restricted.

Never thought paper would be such a precious commodity, did you?

8. Want to be an Iranian AND have your money in a bank account? Some banks say no. Many bank accounts belonging to Iranians in the US have been closed due to sanctions.

Iranian students studying in the US have been especially targeted by banks over-enforcing sanctions. Often, banks will go far overboard in their enforcement for fear of being targeted by the United States government for non-compliance.

This is an especially sensitive issue because Iran’s banks have been completely cut off from the global banking system, forcing Iranians to rely on foreign banks if they travel or live abroad. Even a minor procedure like buying a plane ticket or shopping online is an arduous process, as Iranian credit cards and bank accounts are blocked from making international transactions.

9. Bank accounts belonging to Iranian-Canadians have also faced random closures due to sanctions.

In mid 2012, for example, TD Canada Trust began to close the accounts of numerous Iranian-Canadians and Iranian residents of Canada, apparently without allowing them an opportunity to contest their cases. These closures were widespread; in a single fact-finding meeting held by the Iranian Canadian Congress, about 100 Iranian-Canadians who had been affected showed up to voice their concerns. The episode even prompted the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to suggest that the closures may be violation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. More recently, Canada’s Royal Bank seems to be following suit.

10. Iranians have been denied university entrance to European universities, especially in the fields of mathematics, science and technology (STEM), but also in social sciences and humanities.

Czech Technical University, for example, outright rejected a student based on her Iranian citizenship.

11. Even if Iranian students are admitted to American universitiesthey may be barred from obtaining the financial services, such as student loans, necessary to afford it.

As Discover Student Loans, put it in a rejection letter: “Unfortunately, we cannot approve your application for the following reason(s): the country of residence you provided on your application is on the OFAC sanctioned country list.”

12. Despite changes to visa laws for Iranian students studying in the US, many students still face the problem of the single-entry visas, which means that they cannot visit home without having to go through the burdensome and costly process of re-applying for their student visa.

This is especially true for students in fields of science, engineering, and technology who cannot obtain multiple-entry visas.

13. Airbnb is reportedly denying service to Iranians seeking to sign up.

Photo credit: Ehsan Norouzi (@Ehsanism on Twitter)

14. Want to go to Iran?

You can’t if you want to book it through Trip Advisor, Kayak.com or many other US-based travel companies, who ban any bookings involving Iran.

15. Even if you manage to find a travel agent who will book a flight, some airlines have boycotted the country altogether.

KLM and Austrian airlines, among others, have stopped flying to Iran since the latest rounds of sanctions came into effects. Malaysia’s Air Asia, which previously offered cheap flights from Tehran to Kuala Lumpur and vice versa for hundreds of thousands of Iranian students and immigrants every year, has also canceled all flights to and from Iran since October 14, 2012 to remain compliant with sanctions. Recently, President Rouhani has suggested the possibility of having direct flights from New York to Tehran, but sanctions would have to be lifted before this can be a legal reality.

These are just a few examples of the effects of sanctions. The consequences of these sanctions have seeped into every aspect of life in Iran and have negatively impacted the social, cultural, and economic fabric of society, and are felt by Iranians in some very real ways. By no means an exhaustive list, this was merely an attempt to recognize and remember those affected by sanctions.

Love Is

To the land,

To the people,

To the noise,

To the weather,

To the foods,

.

.

.

I am in love

Confuse

I'm having a sense like burn in my heart heart since past 2 weeks. 3 years ago I experienced a very bad heart burn. I was sent to emergency and they did ecg on my heart. But nothing bad about it, doctor said it's just because of stress and coincidently because that time I took detox tea my heart pumped harder. They gave me medication to slow down my heart beat. Eversince then, it didn't happen again until lately.

If I want to describe how it feels, it is like you prick your skin with needle. It doesnt happen always but I feel it when I sit or drive. I'm worry about it. I know it's because of my stress and problems. Tomorrow I'll start my vacation but I don't feel so excited. I supposed to be very happy now because this is the time I'm waiting for after 3 months. It's a bit confusing to me. Will I enjoy my trip? I should. Everything is ready and packed. I just hope that everything goes well and come back in 1 piece. I don't want this heart burn to be worsened during my holiday.

Taa daafe baad...farda migam koja daram miram...khoda hafez..