June 16th 2008

A view of North Tehran from Park-E-Jamshideh

The Golestan Palace Museum - A tesament to the excesses of Imperial Persia

Back in Tehran, I’ve settled into a routine: Going to class, grabbing a meal with some of the other kids in the institute, and then maybe exploring the city – its museums, bazaars, and teahouses. On one such day a trio of us decided to brave the congestion of south Tehran to visit the famous Jewels Museum. We hopped on a bus to Haft-e-Tir square and grabbed a metro down to Khayyam station. We had to eat first, so we decided on the Khayyam traditional restaurant which came highly recommended in my guidebook as having the best ambience in town; the food turned out to be good as well. The three of us shared kebabs with rice and yogurt over a pot of tea, while lazing in a converted 300 year old mosque with wonderfully restored spaces. Of course, we ate on the requisite carpeted palanquin as we watched the quiet couples sharing qalyan and sweets together. The tinkling fountains, lush greenery, and lethargic atmosphere made me forget that we were in this bustling city of 14 million.

The Khayyam Traditional Resteraunt

After lunch, we made a beeline for the nearby Tehran bazaar to change money. The bazaar is the beating heart of the Tehran. According to some estimates it makes up more than half the retail industry in the entire city. In the past, the Bazaaris (as they are called) have been able to precipitate revolutions simply by going on strike – so vital is their role in the economy that they have been able to topple governments simply by closing shop. Given that we didn’t seem to have enough time to do the Jewels Museum justice, we decided to stay and explore the bazaar instead.

The Tehran bazaar, unlike that of Esfahan, is an ugly place. Its labyrinthine passages and multi-storied shopping levels are crowded, loud and dirty. If the traffic on the roads is bad, it’s even worse in the bazaar. Trolleys stacked many feet high with all sorts of goods careen belligerently through the alleyways, pulled by purposeful deliverymen. Unlike the cars on the streets however, these trolleys are unlikely to stop and make way for you – it seemed as if they would happily maul you over if you didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

The Tehran Bazaar

We were discovered by a friendly bazaari who spoke good English and was eager to practice it with us. He offered to help us find the souvenirs we were looking for. (Tehran’s bazaar is a place of serious business – contemptuous of tourists. Thus we couldn’t really find any handicrafts for purchase.) He took us on a whirlwind tour of the area, through the maze of lanes and alleyways. He took us to a shrine – one of the many places of worship in the bazaar. It was set in a quiet courtyard – a welcome respite from the murderous trolleys. Inside, the walls and ceilings were entirely covered with gaudy reflective glass and crystals – making the entire shrine seem like the inside of a flash bulb. Inside, people were enjoying a quiet moment away from the bazaar. The faithful had chosen their own silent corner and were praying quietly to themselves. Others were just soaking in the ambience: a mullah was engaged in quiet conversation with a disciple, a couple of men were chatting eagerly in whispers, a man sat alone reading the daily newspaper – and behind a curtain in the main room, some were even sleeping.

The Shrine

On leaving the shrine were once more rubbing shoulders with the tangled masses in the bazaar. This time the trolleys were joined by a new danger – speeding motorcycles. Our host cut across the more crowded alley and then took a narrow lane into a more peaceful quarter; this was the carpet district. The noise of the bazaar was soaked up by the rich carpets that lay in huge piles in the middle of the courtyards. We were led up three flights of stairs from which we could take pictures of the magnificent carpets from above. We were then ushered into a clean room with rolled up carpets along the walls. Clearly our host was a carpet seller, and now, after a tour of the bazaar, he expected us to buy a carpet. Little did he know that we were students who could scarcely afford the $100 welcome mats he was showing us, let alone the $1000 dollar carpets he expected us to buy. Needless to say, we were quickly ushered out by the disappointed salesman.

The Carpet District

As I made my way back towards north Tehran – to fashionable Tajrish square where I lived, I reflected on the surprising people of this country. Walking down Tajrish, my eyes fell on the many women and men who had delicate plastic braces on their noses – a sign of recent plastic surgery. Tehran – as you may know – has the highest percapita rate of nose jobs in the world – for both women AND men. The Islamic Republic of Iran is full of contradictions. I walk pass the fashion police (stern looking and lanky women in olive green chadors) who watch the crowds with their beady eyes. I watch a young woman walk by completely oblivious to their presence; she’s wearing a tightly fitting jet-black tunic with a bright yellow headscarf – the most fashionable color combination in Tehran this summer. I remember the story one of my friends from Farsi class told me: he had visited the huge mosque behind Tajrish the last evening and he recalled a most curious addition to the evening Azan (prayer). In the middle, there was a pause during which the speakers crackled the following lines:

Long live Khomeini
Death unto America
Death unto England
Death unto Israel

I then remembered my own experience of the shrine that afternoon. There is probably no Islamic country in the world apart from Iran where you could be sprawled so blithely on the floor of a mosque – so clearly asleep. I would also be hard pressed to find a mosque in which tourists like us could walk right in and snap pictures (with flash) so calmly, while the faithful nonchalantly continue their ablutions.

Iran is a country which is gravely misunderstood and misrepresented. Despite my self-declared independence from the biases of western media, I did not expect the vibrant and multi-layered society that I have encountered in this country. When one thinks of Iran, images of vast undeveloped slums crawling with militants might come to mind, or perhaps one might see pictures of xenophobic death to America marches, maybe one sees sinister mullahs cloaked in flowing black robes keeping the people firmly under their knuckles to serve their own Islamist agenda. Certainly not all Westerners see all these things, but without alternatives to these stereotypes we are left with little else to imagine. The truth is – Iran is an extremely complex country – with a deeply intricate economy, with diverse patterns of social interaction: there are highways, airports, restaurants, NGOs, hotels, offices, bazaars, museums, parks, dreams, desires, successes and failures. There is history here, and there is a future here.

This is not a comment on Iran’s government. Certainly the arguments surrounding political relations between Iran and the West could (and do) fill entire books. Rather these are my simple observations in response to the reductionism and dehumanization which seems to pervade the vacuum of social interaction between Iran and the rest of the world. My worry is that the fear mongerers on both sides gain greatly from dehumanization. It becomes so easy to order a military strike against a country which everyone views as a dark and colorless pit of religious fanaticism. Similarly it becomes very easy to declare jihad on rapacious and decadent capitalism. The dialogue of civilizations must be revived – this time not between government representatives who seek to use the opportunity to posture and spread propaganda – but between ordinary people who will realize that they have very similar values and goals in life. Iranis have a head start – they are barraged with Western pop culture constantly – despite efforts by the establishment to resist it. There are more hamburger and pizza joints than Kebabi restaurants in Tajrish; the people want to wear DKNY skinny jeans, D&G shoes, and own Nokia phones. Despite the explicit condemnation of America – the West still carries enormous cultural influence. Meanwhile from Iran there is nothing but static (and carpets) – something needs to be done about that – and fast, before we have another Iraq on our hands.