This story by Dina Nayeri explores the circumstances of a once famous Iranian sitar player who, following his wife’s death and his daughter’s graduation from Harvard, chooses the simple life of a drifter. This and his clumsiness with technology causes a rift with his condescending daughter, who can’t even make time to share a coffee when he visits New York. Fortunately, he finds solace with a like-minded Indian immigrant and other residents sharing a YMCA hostel. Themes include the immigrant experience, cultural differences, generational conflict, friendship, father-daughter relationships, search for identity, loneliness, nostalgia, the Internet.
Rahad discovers his “big true” while musing on the bus trip back from New York. After coming to realize that the three websites praising his work were put together by his daughter, he concludes: Maybe the earth wouldn’t collapse on itself if a person you love didn’t cosign your every move, or you theirs.
The Big True Text / PDF (9,600 words)