Maya Altimany'22
Dear Journal,
How could my grandpa have gone to prison? How! My father described him as this intellectual man who became the Prime Minister for the Shah at the time. I just found out what happened to my grandfather in prison. I can’t believe the cruelty people face in prison just for being a communist and having different ideas. My mother told me earlier he was put in a cell filled with water for hours, and I could not believe what I heard. Auzubillah (God forbid). It seems she was trying to teach me a lesson of the cost politics can have on your life, but I didn’t pay attention to what she had said. My father asked me to play Monopoly, but I decided instead to see what it felt like being in a water cell just like grandpa because I was curious at the time. I told him I didn’t want to play a game, but that I felt like taking a long bath. When I got out of my long hot bath, my hands were wrinkled just like Grandpa’s. It made me wonder why one would do that to their own kind over something silly like politics. Why would God allow something like this to happen to grandpa? I hope it doesn’t ever happen to me, inshallah (God willing). It wasn’t until that bath that I realized what it feels like to be someone tortured because of their political beliefs.
-Marji Satrapi