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Mother, the Shurreh, and Two Gentle Shadows from a Distant Land
By Nasser Kamali – July 2025, London
Sometimes, kindness sails across the seas — uninvited, wordless.
Sometimes, unfamiliar hands are warmer than all the familiar ones,
pulling a blanket over the shoulders of a mother who no longer has words to speak.
But is language the only way to speak?
Can a single glance not replace a thousand words?
Mother — the quiet, patient woman who had spoken with her own heart for years —
She didn’t just endure life’s hardships, she solved them.
Now, with her eyes, with her breath,
with the trembling of fingers resting gently in the warm hands of two Indian girls,
she was feeling life again.
They spoke no Persian.
She had no voice left.
But one thing was shared:
The heart.
And the heart… always finds its way.
They had come just to care for her.
But Khālu — the old one who sees what others don’t — knew well:
some kinds of care go beyond medicine and duty.
Sometimes, they become a kind of shurreh,
like the sound of the damām echoing from the sea’s waves…
Not through song, but through a smile.
Not from mountains and plains,
but from a heart that loses itself in another and is found again.
The two Indian girls tried to call her “Mother” in their broken tongue.
And Mother, in silence, answered with the sparkle of her eyes:
“My sweet child…”
They weren’t just caregivers.
Not just workers.
They were two gentle shadows
who had become familiar strangers in Mother’s home.
There — where hearts cross borders,
and humanity needs no translation.
Where love is expressed through a southern shurreh.
One was Fazil,
a girl with a soft accent,
dropping Persian words like unripe pearls from her lips.
Her voice touched the heart,
like the shurreh sung by a black zāghu bird
in stormy nights by the sea.
Its tone settled deep into Mother’s soul,
and awakened a soft yezleh — a southern dance — in her eyes.
— “Ma-dar… I luff you…”
she would say with a trembling smile.
Every day she would sit beside Mother,
pour warm coconut oil into her palms,
and comb the white strands of her hair like a treasured relic.
And Khālu, from the corner of the room,
played a sigh from his ney flute —
a sigh that became a shurreh,
a sigh that didn’t want its sadness to be noticed —
but Fazil understood.
Khālu told her:
“You, Fazil-jan, with your tender heart…
Even before you master Persian,
you’ve already become an angel for mothers…”
And she smiled —
a smile from northern India,
that nestled itself into the weary eyes of Mother.
The other was Heela —
quiet, calm, soft as the wind of the southern coast.
She didn’t seek attention,
but she was always there.
Like a cry without sound.
She woke Mother every morning,
dressed her in clean clothes,
brought water to her lips,
and said nothing.
Yet Mother’s gaze would follow her,
and Khālu knew —
sometimes silence is a language of its own,
a language only the wounded heart can understand.
One night,
everything was still.
Fazil sat beside the bed.
Heela held Mother’s hand in silence.
They had come to put her to sleep and quietly leave…
But a sound rose —
a shurreh without words,
from the ney,
from the depth of longing,
from the heart of gratitude.
Fazil whispered with trembling voice:
“Ma-dar… You are good today. You very pretty…”
And Mother,
with only the flutter of her eyelids,
answered.
In that moment,
there was no pain,
no years of illness.
There was only one thing:
Life.
In the touch,
in the glance,
in two girls from a distant land,
and in one Khālu with his ney,
who played a shurreh and softly watched Mother.
No one understood it fully that night —
but in that room,
a shurreh echoed:
of care and migration,
of Mother and mercy,
of loneliness and the gentle touch that saves a soul…
And to this day,
if you listen closely,
in the quiet of Mother’s hands,
in Fazil’s laughter,
in Heela’s silent footsteps,
and in Khālu’s ney…
you’ll still hear it —
a shurreh that began wordlessly,
and never ended.
Humanity knows no borders.
It needs no color.
No religion.
Just a heart —
and a hand that in silence, says:
“My sweet child…”
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Glossary (for international readers):
• Shurreh: A sorrowful, melodic form of lamentation from southern Iran, often sung to express grief or longing.
• Damām: A traditional Southern Iranian drum, used in mourning ceremonies and coastal rituals.
• Yezleh: A communal dance from Bushehr, marked by rhythm and collective emotion.
• Khālu: An affectionate term for an elder man, akin to “uncle” in southern Iranian dialects, used respectfully.
• Zāghu: A southern blackbird known for its melancholic cries.
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