Winter was coming, nay, it had arrived, and you could hear me from a mile away, clippity-clopping my way up and down the steps of the Social Sciences Building feeling like I was on top of the world.

Questions of fate versus free will are intrinsic to who we are as humans. Do individuals have the power to overcome their beliefs? Or are they bound by an eternally pervasive script to which the universe or supernatural powers precede their every breath?

I’ve heard it all, in all forms and rearrangement. Patterns so distant from my actual name that I’ve learnt to sweep things under the rug.

It is important to note that individuals in this part of the world do not consider themselves ‘Middle Eastern’. It is through the eyes of the West, its operations and its framing of ‘the Other’ that the world has come to see the region in such an essentialised way.

The sense of cultural pride that Iranians have when identifying with the Aryan Race has been corrupted.