Posted on August 26, 2014 in Persian Books
“Fellow-Travellers” is the story of people who appear to be gradually becoming part of history while their generation is about to be wiped out. People who have not succumbed to requirements of the time such as opportunism and attainment to mass production at the expense of losing quality and … attempting to retain their correct ideological and existential approaches although these may not be welcomed by others in their heavy and obstinate loneliness – traditional human beings who are not ready to accept all manifestations of modernity in submissive way and surrender to it unquestionably.
Jalal and his family are the last farmers breeding bees in a mountainous region in the ranges of Sabalan (North West of Iran) producing honey in traditional forms, but time has changed. Smaller producers should be assimilated into the heart of the bigger ones or else subject to destruction and constant threats.
Meantime, new manifestations of civilization in the frame of telecommunication masts and mobile receivers have found their way into remote villages and their waves will trigger confusion and death of bees.
In such conditions, the wolf of confusion has attacked the village and has launched an enormous massacre and ruining the entire capital of a family in their worst financial conditions. They suffer very acute consequences, having been left abandoned in the plains and mountains along with a bell, a bell whose threatening voice is always being heard in the course of the story.
Family of Jalal who are under pressure by other producers migrate into the beautiful pass or gorge of Heiran in order to reach the syrup of mountain flowers and to prevent the death of bees (that has involved them only because others have settled the problem by using sugar), but the rival like a wandering wolf chases them in an attempt to eliminate and annihilate them. The story narrates this confrontation and highlights the life of subsidiary human being who rushes to the help of each of them. Finally, family of Jalal with the help of their attar friends succeeds in arresting a man who constantly worked to sabotage their living conditions. What will happen next…?
“Fellow-Traveller” is a story in admiration of nature that is doomed to destruction.