The Forgotten Qanun

“I’m dancing in one of the local ethnic dance groups. We were going to perform a show at the Aram Khachatryan concert hall for the first time, all of us were inexperienced, we were excited and confused in the same time, running back and fro. 15 minutes before the beginning of the concert we suddenly realized that we forgot the qanun (a string instrument) at our dancing classroom. I was the only one who had a car and knew how to drive. And my car was parked at the underground parking lot below the Opera house.

Dressed in my dancing suit, I ran to my car and drove to bring the qanun as fast as I could. And the police stopped me. I explained them that we had a performance now and we needed to urgently get the musical instrument, but they didn’t believe me and I got a 20,000 AMD fine for crossing the red light. Eventually, we got the qanun, but just as arrived back to the concert hall, I learned that the dress of one of our dancers was also left at our classroom.

Once again, I rushed to my car, drove to get the dress as fast as I could, and the same policemen stopped me again. “What happened now?” they asked. I told them that we also forgot the dress, and this time they believed me and let me go without fining me. I got the dress, drove back, and we walked to the stage and did our performance. Everyone was happy, except me. I had to pay 40,000 AMD of fines. Although the policemen didn’t fine me the second time, the violation was caught on a traffic control camera.”