Inside Iran

“Khomeni is omnipresent on towering billboards like our President Rajapakse but the present ruler, President Ahamadinejad is visible only on television. A simple honest man living on his salary, he wears a coat without a tie. So do the men of Iran. All those who spoke English were lavish in praise for him, but to a handful could I speak. This is a country where an Islamic revolution has benefited its people, now more motivated, more dedicated, guided by a passionate leadership, unlike our Muslim leaders who are forever enjoying ice cream at a carnival.”
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by Gomin Dayasri

(April 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Getting a visa to Iran is on fast track – the gateman at the local embassy knows best to ease the passage; consular officers at our own embassies would do well with a crash course under his tutelage. But not so, at the immigration counter at Teheran where each visitor has to wait patiently in a long queue as the solitary officer at the foreign passport counter ponders over the documentation with his paltry command of English, as he sorts out in his mind each letter to be transferred to his computer meticulously, to make an entry. A junior scrabble board may be handy for his familiarization in a country where foreign languages are virtually unknown except for a few phrases in English.

Tourist Guides know their memorized set pieces of set places. Ask them a question? The answer is bizarre that a previously recited piece can subsequently sound awkwardly bewildering. Understandably, they cater exclusively for the local traveler with most hotels being sub standard. A lady teacher who studied in Poona said apologetically she had a conversation in English after 25 years. Nevertheless, Bush’s axis of evil has advanced splendidly without mastering English.

Ladies who fail to hide their hair with a scarf are in peril - like my wife - who was nearly denied entry; fortunately at the airport a sunhat was found in the hand luggage. Iran is going through a hair rising revolution. The older women have their heads enclosed in dark capes along with their black gowns - not even grey hairs are for public display. The girls rakishly tie their colorful scarfs to display tinted hair which is more often a blend of sophisticated shades of grey white and brown. On television, the youthful news reader is covered more like a mother superior in a convent. A trapped head lacks ventilation; thinking process inside does not care a damn for western values - proud of their religion, proud of their culture - enjoying the fruits of their revolution.

Due to the language barrier, it is no katta but just hinna. Tourists are few and Americans being scarce, tourists are an attraction in the absence of tourist attractions in a country where snapshots search desperately for landscapes. School children in the interior pick tourists they meet on the streets, to identify nationalities, just as our kids do with stamps in albums. Sri Lankans are deemed a rare species, thankfully, not classified yet as endangered. Often they called Hindustan as we passed, and a correction to Sri Lanka meant an extended warm handshake and a greeting, but unlike in the scenic hamlets in Europe where Sri Lanka is unknown, we are identified on their road map as tea is the popular beverage. The affinity the Persian empire of the past had for Sri Lanka is yet not forgotten in this Muslim country. Indians were ignored.

Life is infinitely better than in the days of the Shah of Persia, before the revolution when western oil companies ran the country. Education is taken to the countryside, not restricted to the urban districts as previously. It is a free economy but import substitution is visible in the manufacturing trade and the patriotic people opt for home products in their preference to Japanese goods. Inflation is on the rise but not still an issue. Khomeni is omnipresent on towering billboards like our President Rajapakse but the present ruler, President Ahamadinejad is visible only on television. A simple honest man living on his salary, he wears a coat without a tie. So do the men of Iran. All those who spoke English were lavish in praise for him, but to a handful could I speak. This is a country where an Islamic revolution has benefited its people, now more motivated, more dedicated, guided by a passionate leadership, unlike our Muslim leaders who are forever enjoying ice cream at a carnival.

Fashion and designer clothes are for men only. Women have a few trendy boutiques for shoes, jewellery and slippers and many shops for uniforms in black. Reaction is women are over dressed in the privacy of their homes among friends and relations making the terms public and private in the holy texts flexible and the liberal interpretations among college kids classifying even a mob as a known crowd to dress gaudily. On the streets holding hands would be young men in stylish cotton rough shirts, leather belts and pointed shoes with hooded women in dark gowns of dubious age in view of camouflaged dress.

The shop keepers in the bazaars are laid back and hardly make an effort to sell their ware. Their quotes are reasonable with little sales talk and any sensible counter offer is accepted with a nod with no room for haggling. Even the numerals are not in roman figures but in Persian, so without a calculator it is a nowhere land - mercy to Allah - there are yet no calculators with Persian numerals. They close shop for a siesta at midday for two hours or keep the shop open with a small boy to operate while they sleep on the counters or on the floor and close shop early evening to go home. They sleep early and wake up late.

Gourmet is an unknown word in a society of tasteless food. A feast is an array of raw vegetables sliced with kebabs grilled with insipid pickles more for display than for taste. The art of culinary is in a slicer and a shredder and not the recipe book. For bulk, it is wafer thin wheat bread or sticky rice served with a cube of butter even in hotels as in an officers’ mess. It is no different in a restaurant, except waiters know less English, an order fresh fruit juice will bring canned non alcoholic Tubor beer. To put them in the mood, they smoke the water pipes with fruit essences with some hash added to give a kick upstairs since strict prohibition is strictly observed. They eat the dessert along with the main meal. Wherever you look, it is boxes of paper serviettes everywhere - it is a tissue paper culture in comparison to the glorious past of the Persian civilization in the times of Darius.

Iranians, unlike the other mid easterners have over the years turned the desert to arable land much like the Isrealis, with the extraction of ground water and green houses. We stopped casually to peep into a mud covered dwelling to be immediately invited to a desert lunch banquette of the local delicacies. They brought the home baked gigantic wheat bread wheels, mutton porridge washed with yoghurt and greens salads bathed in vinegar and pickles with an array of nuts to be downed with nougat and curd. It was placed on Persian carpets in dishes and food was consumed sitting cross legged on the floor - it tasted so different from the bland insipid food served in four star hotels. The village ladies prepared the food within an hour and to while away time, the grand lady of the compound took us around the fields to show the inexpensive local irrigation systems. All those who cooked the meal sat for lunch and our guide became a translator and had to plead exhaustion. The food remaining on the dishes, including the plates were taken to respective homes in doggy bags. Hospitality is a way of life.

Abbas, a youth form Afghanistan with his kid brother made the crossing after 7 members of the family were killed by the Talibans and earned sufficiently by hard work to rent a water pump house operated on electricity which diverted the water along drains to reach each plant in his block in this village in the desert. The creative and simplistic canal system adopted by him appears to be on a shoestring budget (except for the electricity bill) and the returns Abbas receives in the markets makes it possible for him to return home in two years. He put me to shame as an absentee landowner with easy water resources and fertile fields of embarrassing under utilization due to indifference and lethargy.

"I hate the Americans as much as the Talibans. They are both ruining our country but with the money earned, I can go back to my land and take home the techniques I learnt. That will be my contribution," says Abbas, working in the scorching sun while a cool spring breeze comforted him.

The glory of Iran is in its history and in the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini.

The past overshadowing the present, just as in Sri Lanka. Pars polis (city of the parses) with its still remaining refined stone carvings displays an exquisite civilization that existed in 400 BC placing in shame the garish and grotesque work of the mosques and tombs of more recent origin. In the period of glory, the Parse community was deemed Zoroastrians before Shiite teaching took over with a different culture. Most of the sun worshipping Parses left for Bombay with a few like the Captains and Pestonjees drifted to Colombo and became distinguished citizens in Sri Lanka in the field of trade and commerce. Bombay remains their acknowledged cultural capital, though they would have reached greater heights if they sought inspiration from the original home of the Parses. It is ironical that city of tombs in Petra’s in Jordan was voted a wonder of the world instead of Pars polis unless the location was disqualified, being declared unsafe for western travelers by their own travel advisors.

Iran outside Teheran and Ifshahan is like Burma twenty years ago, with mosques instead of temples, tombs instead of dagobas. Traditional buildings dominate, life is at leisure, eating houses are down memory lane, food unimaginative, music only on local instruments comparable to the sounds that emanated at dawn and dusk until the Supreme Court came down on noise pollution. It is a content community where life is becoming increasingly better and duller. It lacks the vibrancy of our society, just as the crescent does not shed the light of a full moon.
- Sri Lanka Guardian