Persian Students Celebrate the New Year

The Persian Society celebrated the New Year festival of Nowrooz with a night of traditional food and dance on Friday in the Currier House Fishbowl.

Nowrooz celebrates the awakening of the new light of spring prevailing over the darkness of winter, according to Ali J.Q. Satvat '99, co-president of the Persian Society.

This festival has been celebrated for 2,500 years and is the main holiday in the Persian world. It serves as the Persian Society's main annual event.

Each year the Nowrooz festival draws about 150 people, including Harvard students and people from local neighborhoods.

Nushin Kormi '99, also a Persian Society co-president, said the celebration has a great significance to Persians, who all celebrate it simultaneously.

"What's really cool is that people celebrate [Nowrooz] at the same time, same minute all around the world," Kormi said.

The celebration focused around the Haft Seen--meaning "seven S's"--a table with an arrangement of symbols whose Farsi name begin with "s." These items signify separate themes of the festival, from fertility to family.

"The Persians were originally Zoroastrian. For this reason, Nowrooz is not at all a religious holiday, but a very secular celebration," Kormi said.

The festival is different from traditional Islamic festivals, according to participants, because it is based on Persian culture, rather than the religion itself. The ancestors of present-day Iranian Muslims, Persians were originally Zoroastrians.

Kormi said the Persian Society puts on this celebration annually in order to bring Persian culture to the Harvard community.

"There are lots of Persians here in this area. Our main goal is to introduce the people of Harvard to Persian culture," Kormi said.

Satvat shared similar sentiments.

"Nowrooz and the Persian Society celebrates our culture. We were created to further our culture and bring together the Persians in our area," Satvat said.

The celebration began with a speech detailing the celebration of Nowrooz given in Farsi, the language of ethnic Persians.

After a translation of the same speech into English, the Sabzi-polo-mahi, a traditional meal of fish and rice, was served.

The celebration was topped off with dancing featuring traditional Persian music.