IT was a placard that as students we would draw cartoons on or write slogans with marker pens or thick brushes for college protests. To deter Donald Trump’s vile description of Iranians as an evil lot, the chador-clad Iranian woman chose a verse from the great Persian poet Firdausi for her placard. The 10th-century master poet is credited with reviving Persian literature. His fabled Shahnameh chronicled the legends of Persian kings with motifs and characters that were essentially pre-Islamic. The stories of Rustam and Sohrab, for example, popularised by Firdausi, relate to the early Zoroastrian period of Iran. Colonial upstarts would later drool at the awe-inspiring heritage he spawned. It was reflected in the British pretence at majesty as they attempted to mask an instinct for savage plunder.

After uprooting the Persian-Prakrit-Sanskrit culture nurtured by Muslim rulers in India, chiefly the Mughals, the British viceroy installed a Persian painting on the ceiling of the ballroom of the vice-regal palace, today’s Presidential Palace. The painting still hangs there, mocking Hindutva’s boorish hatred of Iran’s legacy of refinement in India. The painting of a Qajar-era ruler on a tiger hunt was created by an Italian artist as faux inspiration from the legends depicted in Firdausi’s magnum opus, compiled between 977 AD and 1010 AD.

The verse the woman wrote with a blue brush on a placard for the huge Nowruz march through Tehran to mark the Persian new year intrigued an American journalist watching the war. Ergo: there are........

© Dawn