Omid. Hope

The Essences are each a separate Glass

Through which the Sun of Being's Light is passed -

Each tinted fragment sparkles in the Sun:

A thousand colours, but the Light is One.

Jami (fifteenth century)

In 1916, a terrible disaster struck Azerbaijan — a wave of cholera swept through towns and villages. Abdullah Khan then set out for Persia, to Mashhad, as if fleeing from the darkness and disease. But the epidemic soon reached that city as well. He believed that here he could begin a new life, fulfilling his long-cherished dream — to open his own photo studio. The money he had earned from David Rostamiani he guarded like seeds for a future garden. And the name of the studio had long lived in his imagination — Omid. Translated from Farsi to English - means Hope.

Autumn mornings in Mashhad were gentle, drenched in golden sunlight. The streets still kept their silence when Abdullah Khan opened the door to his little photo workshop. He worked there with fervour — arranging his instruments, polishing the lenses until they gleamed, fixing the tripod. Only one thing remained: to hang the sign “Omid” above the entrance and welcome his first visitors. His heart beat with faith, and his face glowed with the light of a man certain that his dream was about to come alive.

He placed a samovar on the table to offer tea to guests and began to wait. Yet the door never opened. People in the street glanced at the new sign, paused for a moment, peered into the dim interior, and then moved on, hurrying with their own troubles.

A day passed, then another, then a week. Each morning, Abdullah Khan greeted the sun with the same hope, but no one came. In times of hunger and fear, people had no thought for portraits — all they cared about was a piece of bread for themselves and their families, and how to survive the cholera epidemic. His bright eyes gradually dimmed, like lamps slowly losing their current. With each passing day, it became harder to believe that a better time would ever come.

At last, he took down the “Omid” sign, carefully wrapping it in a piece of cloth, as if preserving the last remnants of his dream. The studio he had long awaited and so tenderly nurtured in his thoughts remained empty. And he himself moved on — to Tehran, carrying with him only the shadow of hope that perhaps, one day, it might shine again.