Meet Firooz Ahmadi:

(aka: “Sir,” “Mister,” “Lord,” “Baba,” and “Patriarch of The Ahmadi Family”)

​It was January of 1990 in a snowy Columbus, Ohio, when Mahmoud called me over to join him on the phone—where he’d been chattering and laughing in Persian for the past twenty minutes. As I entered the sitting room, he handed me the telephone receiver and encouraged me with his eyes to follow suit.
 
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a string of his relatives (siblings, aunts & uncles, nieces & nephews, Baba & Maman, cousins, and so on) were gathered around the telephone at my in-laws’ house in the Iranian village called Duzaj—each person waiting their turn to greet me and wish me a happy New Year. It felt odd for us to be so far apart; just six weeks earlier, Mahmoud and had still been submerged in my two-week introductory trip to Iran, where all our hearts had begun to meld. I was actually part of an Iranian family! But now we were back in the USA.
 
Unsure of my level of Persian, I nonetheless accepted the telephone, took a silent breath, and set off the chain of conversations with a single word: “Allo?”
       
One by one, most of them started the conversation with me in the same way—with the same cheery voices, congratulatory words, and a gentle reintroduction: “Salam, Leslie Khanum! Saleh no mobarak!  (Zahra) hastam” [i.e., “Hello, Ms. Leslie! A blessed New Year! I am (_____.)”]                          
 
There was one greeter, however, who forgot to identify himself to me. Or maybe he was confident that I would recognize his voice (even though I did not). So, hesitant and slightly embarrassed, I asked the gentleman his name.
 
Without missing a beat, the voice answered back in Persian. “I am Firooz!” he said cheerfully in a confident tone. He sounded so sure that I knew who he was, I guessed that I was the one at fault if I didn’t. So, I decided to play along and not plead ignorance.
 
“Firooz!” I responded in a cheerful voice too—but upped a notch. “I am happy to hear from you! How is your wife?”
 
Fortunately for me, he had a wife, apparently. “Thank you! She is very well.”
 
Our jovial exchange continued for another minute or so, almost as if it were a game. We fell into a tidy pattern of my starting each conversation topic by stating his name (I liked the sound of “Firooz,” somehow), then asking him a question, then his answering each question as if it had made sense—even if perhaps it hadn’t. I realized that with the last question I asked him.
 
“So, Firooz … where do you live? Where is your house?” I was hungry for any clue, any detail that would help me place him.
 
Again, his answer was cheerful, plain, and straightforward, “My house is here.”
 
“You live in the village, Firooz? But where in the village?
 
“I live right here in this house, Leslie Khanum,” he said. I could hear a gleeful smile overtaking his voice. A voice that was starting to sound familiar.
 
“‘This’ house, you say … So, by ‘this house,’ do you mean the house you are talking from? But isn’t that the house of …wait a minute—” I turned to Mahmoud and looked him straight in the eye. “Who is this person on the telephone, Baby? It couldn’t … or could it be … BABA? (I had never called him or known him as anything else). And does his first name happen to be … ‘Firooz’?
 
Mahmoud said nothing, but his eyes were full of delight.
 
“Bale (Yes), Leslie Khanum,” the voice on the other line answered in Persian, then finished the sentence in limited English and a strong Iranian accent, “My name is Firooz Ahmadi. I am ‘BABA!’
 
I could still hear the smile in his voice, but I was horrified. So, it really was the case that I’d been talking with my father-in-law without knowing it—and all the while calling him by his first name, which was totally inappropriate culturally?
 
Throughout his life and career, Firooz Ahmadi had been called and acknowledged by many names:

• Aqaye Firooz Khan (“Mr. Lord Firooz”) as chief magistrate under the feudal lord when the village and surrounding villages were still being managed under the feudal system
• Firooz Khan (“Lord Firooz”) as referred to by colleagues in local communities who knew and respected him
• Firooz Aqa (“Mr.” or “Sir” Firooz) as referred to by friends and local acquaintances
• Aqaye Ahmadi (“Mr. Ahmadi”) as referred to respectfully by surrounding neighbors, as well as by his beloved wife
• Aqa (“Sir”) as addressed respectfully by his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

 
But no one had ever presumed to call him “Firooz” or “Baba”—not even his own children! That is, no one except for me, Firooz Khan’s foreign American daughter-in-law! Despite my best efforts, it was one of the many cultural snafus I was guilty of committing when I lived in Iran in the early 90s. But I’m so glad my calling him “Baba” was allowed to stick.
 
Of course, I never called Baba “Firooz” again. But I wonder what mischief possessed my father-in-law to introduce himself as “Firooz” to me on that memorable day. I suppose that just like his son Mahmoud, he could be as mischievous and playful as he could be eloquent and noble.
 
Come to know him and the other members of my family better as revealed in my upcoming memoir Road Between Two Hearts: A Black American Bride Discovers Iran. The final details and publication date are soon to be announced!

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