Iran Through My Eyes-2

There are also a lot of ISKCON  followers in Iran but of course they meet in secret......

Silence Betokens Consent!!!- Persian Proverb

This is the silence which I found in Tehran amongst youth there. No one is willing to demonstrate against the religious diktat of the government, some people I spoke to told me that they are tired of war and the damages caused by earthquakes they don’t want another conflict and though they love the American culture they don’t want another war. The war has left them with more women then men. I met some very beautiful women in their late 20’s and mid 30’s still unmarried because they couldn’t find a man. Many women friends I made had told me that they don’t trust men in Tehran as they tend to have multiple girlfriends at the same time. Well that’s why I always call Tehran the land of plenty (Pun Intended). There are some very intriguing facts about marriage in Iran. By Islamic law a man is allowed to have four wives, I am sure you all new that. But did you know that he can have upto 3 mistresses also. There is also a agreement marriage where a man and a woman can register for a short period of time say 6 months and can stay together. The man has to pay for her living expenses. All these laws are prevalent in Iran kind of contradictory for a conservative religion like thatJ. One more fact of the marriage scenario is that if a guy likes a girl he has to approach the girl’s family and that’s a tradition. Hey I hope all this information doesn’t give you any ideas such me getting married to someone in Iran though I won’t mind that ;).

The youth in Iran are in to same kind of stuff that you would find Indian youth doing in big cities. I have seen lots of guys and gals meeting up in malls. Guys eve teasing girls (men will always remain the same). From my experiences I have seen that women in Tehran are very forward and frank in their thinking and outlook. Another wonderful thing I noticed about the number of working women. I felt that there are many job opportunities for women in Tehran, and they are well respected at the work place. The people seem to have really good habits, many of them love to read and write prose as well as well as poetry. Persians have great legacy of poets including omar khayyam, hafez and firdausi who have extensively written about women wine and nature’s beauty. In fact one of my friends gave me a book of poetry by hafez known as the Divan-e-Hafez with some of the most beautiful illustrations and calligraphy that I have ever seen. Anyone interested to see this is most welcome to come and see it at my place. Its seems like a magical book and the poems which are translated in English are wonderful. It is a part of Iranian culture to open Divan-e Hafez at random with a question or a wish, and let Hafez answer the question. When I tried the same, and I opened one of the page I found a poem on India by Hafez which went like “If you wanna see a peacock, you have to go to Hind” quiet a coincidence, my friend though had a naughty smile on her face and didn’t divulge the details of the whole prophecy to me. I had the pleasure of attending a poetry reading session, it was wonderful and I met a quiet a few people from whom I learnt that they have many readings of banned books at each others place once a week. Yes my friends many books are banned in Iran, but many people do defy the ban and still smuggle them into the country. Many people seem to have a lot of interest in western philosophy and spiritualism.

Many of them have read the Gita and many of them were eager to have a discourse on that with me. Luckily I had read it myself so I could stand up to them.

There are also a lot of ISKCON  followers in Iran but of course they meet in secret. Any knowledge of this to the religious police could prove to have disastrous consequences in Tehran.

Music is banned in Iran and many of the singers operate from outside the country mainly in USA. We have a full fledged Persian Music Channel and the pop industry is huge. I procured Mp3 Cd of Iranian pop songs of the black market. It’s cool! Iran itself has some wonderful independent filmmakers who left the country after the revolution in 1979. I had a chance of watching an Iranian movie, a kind of satire on the religious priests, of course this movie titled ‘Marmulake’ was banned in Iran, but it was very interesting specially because there were English sub-titles and I could get some of the jokes, though the English in the sub-titles was even funnier I think. I also saw an English movie in Tehran in a movie theatre, and it wasn’t a surprise it was Fahrenheit 9/11 ;). Even the pirated hollywood movies CD’s are censored, as I found out to my utter dismay when I bought a CD of the movie VAN HELSING.

What Tehran lacks in bars and pubs (for obvious reasons) it makes up in café’s and fast food joints which dot the city and these are the best places to meet random people away from the prying eyes of the religious police. I was mistaken as an Iranian many a time as I am fair and they seem to have a mindset that most Indians are dark.
 
But when I couldn’t speak the language and the café owners found out that, I used to become the object of attraction with them telling their customers about an Indian ( They refer to India as Hendh and to the people as Hendhi) and many people used to just walk upto me to ask questions of Indian culture movies religions etc. Some of them wanted to know how to send their children for higher education their. How much is the cost of doing engineering there and will I be able to keep a tab on their kids as their local guardian (Makes me go hmmm as I cannot keep a tab on myself). I managed to make some really good friends like that. One of them a girl called Tahmineh whom I used to teach English, her English wasn’t that bad but some obvious mistakes were there and she used to forget some words. Most of the people in Iran don’t know English, as it’s not taught at the school level. They start learning only at the university. Though many are sending their children to private language schools who teach them English. Translators are in great demand in Iran and I met quiet a few of them at my workplace. One of my funniest moments in Iran was with a General Manager at my workplace who one day came up to me and said “Onebody is phoning you” ( He meant there is somebody’s phone call for you). I tried real hard not to laugh. In another instance Upper Limit was translated as Upstairs Limit and Lower Limit as downstairs Limit. I did meet people who had lived outside Iran and they spoke great English.

Now I shall come to something which is of the utmost importance to me and that is “Food”, please hear this self confessed foodie out. Iranian food is bland for us spice loving Indians, but its still interesting. First things first vegetarians will have a hard time there. But if you are a non-veg and you have no religious reservations about beef than you will revel in what Iranian cuisine has to offer you. Chello Kabob (Beef Kebabs served with saffron rice) is perhaps Iran’s most interesting offering, but then Ghorme Sabzi (Lamb meat cooked in Spinach with Lime Juice) isn’t too far behind. My personal pick is the Al Borz restaurant in Tehran where they serve kebabs by their length in meters. There is also an Indian restaurant called Taj Mahal which is quiet wonderful and its very popular with Iranians. Iranians saffron is just about the best and the most potent in the world and they love to use with gay abandon in their food. Another interesting Drink I found was Doogh, Its butter milk with Soda in it. You need to get used to it to like it. I am sure I don’t need to mention the famous Iranian Tea which but I will do it anyway. It is a wonderful concoction of strained tea without milk and sugar. They Iranian way of drinking it ; Put a sugar cube on your tongue and drink hot tea and suck on the sugar cube as the tea passes through mouth. Now that’s the way uhuh uhuh I like it (I always wanted to say that). Iranian bakery products are to die for specially the saffron cookies from Kermanshahr, they melt in your mouth leaving a lasting taste of saffron in your mouth. I guess you can make out why my jeans wouldn’t fit me when I came back from Iran. Apart from the food another thing not to be missed is smoking the Ghaeliyoon (Hookah), which right now is a big rage in metropolitan India but a tradition in Iran where it’s not unusual to find even seven, eight year olds smoking it and also lots of women. In one instance I found a kind of a kitty party of women sitting in a hookah café a smoking all those big hookahs with their many flavors. And it’s damn cheap there. A combination of hookah, Iranian tea and date could be stimulating in more ways than one ;). A hookah costs about five USD and I bought five of them to India which caused quiet a ruckus with customs as they appeared to be dangerous devices when seen through an x-ray. I can still remember those long conversations with tea hookah and dates hmmm make me nostalgic. And that’s all about that food.


Lets move to travel now, well Tehran has some of the most beautiful and serene gardens which dot the city, Jamshediyah and Milad park are wonderful. Jamshediyah at the foot of the Damavand Mountains provide wonderful opportunities for trekking and it’s a good place to have a coochie-coo with your girlfriend in a place where there is no such freedom. Iranians love camping with their families and going to parks is a very important tradition. Milad park has busts of the famous Persian poets and it’s a nice place to relax. Most people in iran are very active and sporty, they love trekking and climbing the mountain rather than using the cable car route, which I found much to my discomfort as my friends insisted on trekking and I with my alcohol filled life and no stamina nearly died trying to climb and trek J. This made me think that if alcohol was banned in India. I mean people like me could be more healthier. One place which was highly recommended by people was the palace of the deposed Shah of Iran, it turned out be quiet disappointing as it was more like a modern villa than a palace, but it was nice nonetheless. Since I was in the north of Iran we decided to visit Isfahan, a city of great history, some lovely monuments with beautiful domes very similar to some of our own mughal architecture in India, these domes were replete with wonderful Turquoise work which is unique to iran. I was also told that one of the buildings were designed by Ustad Isa, the same person who designed the Taj Mahal. Isfahan has a beautiful market where I went mad and spend a lot of precious techie dollars to buy curios for my home including, copper plates, hookah’s miniature paintings etc. I must have paid a lot more than it was worth because our guide had a frown on his face each time I told him I had struck a bargain. I also had a chance to visit the famous Caspian Sea which actually is not a sea and doesn’t behave like either. It wasn’t very exciting and the water near the shore had too many pointed stones which weren’t a happy sight for feet of over enthusiastic buggers like me who want to jump into the water as soon as they see it. The most wonderful place that I visited in Iran was 900 kms from Iran the ancient Persian city of Persepolis. It was the seat King Darius II and it was wonderful just like the pyramids. This was built around 241 AD. There was a place called the ‘Gateway of the world’ which had these beautiful pillars which had animals like the owl made on top of them. We also saw the valley of kings which reminded me of the perfect setting for one of the Indiana Jones Treasure Hunt movies, but hey only this time it was me instead of Harrison Ford. One more thing I noticed that the Iranian railways is very nice and it is built by Indian companies. I was wondering if we could do such a nice job for them, why we couldn’t improve the conditions here.

In spite of the nice things which I saw in Iran I also felt an inherent sadness amongst the youth there. Iran is like a golden cage for them where everything is available but there is no freedom and it makes me wonder that even with a million problems we have to face in India one thing which makes us survive and grow is the kind of freedom we get in our country. Imagine trying to lead your daily life under the threat of being arrested because your clothes are not correct. A friend of mine was given 50 lashes and was confined in jail for a week when a new year’s party was raided by the religious police in Tehran and they found dress code inappropriate and of course they found booze there. I can safely say that this isn’t a rumor as I saw the lash marks on his back which were clearly visible months after the incident took place. The suicide rate amongst youth is very high as there is no outlet for releasing their frustrations. But even through this I see a ray of hope amongst people who do rebel against the religious fundamentalism in their own small way. I can only imagine that how wonderful iran would become if the religious fundamentalist forces are removed. In the meantime for the sake of my friends who are facing this kind of oppression day in day out I can only pray for them to Wait and Hope……. In conclusion I can only say that the whole Iran experience was nothing less than an exhilarating one for me where I overcame many apprehensions, made some very good friends for life, learnt about a wonderful culture with ancient cultural ties with our own, saw the resilience of people against religious fundamentalism.

(I dedicate this to all my Iranian friends, especially to Mona, Marjan, Tahmineh, Reza, Bahareh, Ali and Gita. )

posted by wizardowozz

Author:- Unknown
Collected by :-HARE KRISHNA FAN CLUB