ای کاش وقتی ماساژور کمرم را ماساژ می‌داد، دردم نمی‌آمد.

Questions & Answers about ای کاش وقتی ماساژور کمرم را ماساژ می‌داد، دردم نمی‌آمد.

How does the phrase دردم نمی‌آمد mean "it didn't hurt"? Where is "I" in this verb?
This is a classic "experiencer verb" in Farsi. Instead of saying "I felt pain," Farsi expresses this as "my pain came." The noun درد (pain) takes the possessive ending ـَم (my) to show who is experiencing it. The verb نمی‌آمد (wasn't coming) is in the 3rd person singular because its grammatical subject is the pain itself. Literally, it translates to: "my pain was not coming."
Doesn't ای کاش (I wish) usually require the subjunctive? Why are the verbs here in the past continuous (می‌داد, نمی‌آمد)?
You are right that ای کاش often takes the subjunctive for future or possible wishes. However, when you are wishing that an ongoing situation was different right now, or wishing an ongoing past action had happened differently (an unreal or impossible wish), you use the past continuous tense (the می prefix + past stem). Here, the speaker is wishing that the ongoing experience of the massage had been different.
In کمرم را, why is the object marker را placed after the pronoun ending ـَم?
In Farsi, possessive endings like ـَم (my) attach directly to the noun they modify, becoming fully part of that word: کمرم (my back). Because "my back" is the specific direct object being massaged, the specific object marker را must follow the entire noun phrase, giving us کمرم را.
Is ماساژ می‌داد a compound verb?
Yes, it is a compound verb made of the borrowed noun ماساژ (massage) and the helper verb دادن (to give). So literally, the masseur "was giving a massage" to the speaker's back.

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