Bambak`s Scorpions

Introduction

Like the thrill of climbing the twisted trunk of a tropical tree, barefoot.

“Bambak’s Scorpions” consists of adventurous and intricate storylines that intertwine and grow in to elaborate branches of an exquisite young adult novel. Kholu, a southern teenage boy works as gravestone-washer in the city cemetery with his friends. They create a gang, calling it the Scorpions and turn a wrecked abandoned ship as their hangout. The cemetery both their playground and workplace is called the asylum by them. Events of the story take place during the Islamic revolution in 1979.

In a dark chilling night, a group of men drive to the cemetery trying to bury a suitcase. The scorpion boys catch them off guard and shoo them away. The men take off and the next morning the boys discover what they were hiding, a suitcase full of manuscripts, books and pictures of a mustached man. Kholu takes two books and hides it in his home eventually finding the owner of the suitcase from the portraits inside, the same people who tried to dispose it. Thus Kholu sets foot inside the house and into the lives of people from another social class, much different to his own. He meets their teenage son and introduces him to the gang of scorpions.

As the story progresses, Kholu’s addicted father is arrested for hiding politically banned books. Kholu and the gang delusively suspect their neighbor, a policeman, for treason thus seek to vindicate his disloyalty. They attempt to kidnap the guard one night in hopes of forcing him confess the details of his activities thus discovering the nature and place of their father’s confinement.

“We didn’t wait by the road for too long. The guard came earlier than 9 and we had not yet cast the broken glass on the road. According to the plan he was to come on a bike, notice the glass, stop and get off to avoid injury. Yet he came earlier and without his bike. I was furious so I took out the bottle of ether and a tissue and pressed it on his face. I saw a sparkle when our fingers met.”

The author portrays the lives of the young boys delicately real and honest, immersing present day readers in nostalgia and taking them back to the revolution years of 1979’d Iran, struck with poverty, hardship, oppression and political tyranny, widespread addiction and anarchy and so on…

A noticeable characteristic of the novel is the author’s ethnic southern tone and local phrases of the time period. The stories take place in 27 separate chapters, tangled in an accelerated pace. Amusingly, the narrator identifies with Huckleberry Finn throughout the book comparing himself to him in several occasions. Even more from in between the lines, he turns to the author and the reader establishing a direct dialogue with them.

“By the way let me tell you something before I go on. I asked this guy, Hassan Zadeh who parades about how a talented writer he is, if he knew Mark Twain. He said yes I know him. I said: are you friends? I mean do you have photos together? …I said that in purpose. I know most big writers are phonies and you can’t trust them… he mocked me: are you serious kid? He is dead. I said: really? Where is his grave? He said: Volek what do you want with his grave? I said nothing, just asking. He said: you wicked boy! I bet you want to wash his grave stone.”

All the main events of the novel are also adorned by appealing side stories: Kholu’s mom died of cancer, Mamdoo’s sister is slightly dim due to a faulty injection at birth, Kholu’s dad has an intimate relation with chubby Khadije working at the cemetery, Meno the mute has his tongue cut so he can’t speak, the boys feed on the sweets and charity offered by the visitors and mourners, a man searching for his lost son’s grave and Kholu who occasionally fantasized about Keyvan’s sister or even the guard’s daughter…

Without exaggeration, the teenage heroes of the book experience life, confess to their fears, reveal their weaknesses and intimidate each other but never lose hope moving forward day by day through their childhood and into a new existence.

All these exquisite features have made Bambak’s Scorpions a successful young adult literary work, gaining the widespread praise of both readers and critics. It has been recognized as the prominent piece of the year 2010 and a television adaptation is in production for the Iranian state television.