Unsaid

The spring Hazara grand picnic of 2025 was 2 weeks ago on May 19th, the same day as Memorial Day.

Hazaragi clothing stands and many other stands, all different but all Hazara related, were there for people to buy and just remember who we are and where we came from. In little stands of them all there was one that sold books; persian books. 

I was walking casually, looking at people’s colorful traditional dresses, till I saw they were also selling books. Unsure, I went to see the books, and mostly they were all in Farsi, and there were a few thick books published by him, and he seemed to be glad to sign them for people. 

I picked up a few books and started reading them for the idea of the book, and because it had been a long time since I had read anything in Farsi, to learn the structure of Persian sentences for writing.

There was a book that seemed a bit more unique; it was the migration story of someone from Afghanistan. Even though it was at an advanced level of language, I felt connected through some sentences I read while checking the pages.

I remembered the sentence I said before, “I like reading books, but I think I should at least understand what it means…” I felt maybe it would turn into a book I wouldn’t read and it would just rest in the book shell for ages, but I also knew I would have read that the first chance I got, and I got it. Baba paid for it, of course. And there he had put a challenge for kids to teenagers to read a paragraph to get a free book. I got the free book too, just by pronouncing a wrong word I thought I couldn’t get, but he seemed not to have a problem with only one, and so I got the books. 

I felt like a great philosopher when I was walking back to our spot in the park with books in my hand, and with myself appreciated his words, “I see this mindset has been gone around that Hazara culture means clothes and food but the actual culture of us is to bring honor, is these book and that’s what the younger generation needs to know.” I think that’s what we forgot about ourselves, it’s not difficult to keep but very easy to forget