We landed in Tehran ~7AM and were surprised to be greeted at the airport by Amu Reza (Mom’s father’s brother). He is a 70 year-old that looks no more than 60, hikes up a mountain once a week, makes excellent full-bodied shiraz-style “grape juice”, and reads everything from Persian poetry to English language political books. Of course, after the revolution he (like several members of my family and thousands of others with his type of background) was imprisoned for “ties” to the Shah. Now, ironically, he works in the higher echelons of government on issues of education and culture. He made doubly sure to pick us up that day because he was afraid we hadn’t heard about the Islamic Regime’s new crackdown on women’s dress. In fact, we had certainly heard about it as it was the talk of the town for a couple days and we even saw students protesting these absurdities in Shiraz. Reza’s wonderful wife Kokab had her delectable fresh homemade orange peel and strawberry jams and her sister’s amazing pistachio breakfast cake waiting for us in our apartment. Ah, what a life!That night we visited an Iranian college student whom we had met in Tabriz. She described how the previous day she witnessed police on patrol picking up provocatively dressed women and became so frightened that she ran full speed down a random street and jumped into the first cab she saw. She went on: “My own friends were actually arrested for bad hejab the other day but they just escaped from the police van. It was so great!” The usual consequence of arrests for dress code violations is that your parents have to come to the police station with more appropriate clothing for you while slipping the cops $50 or so before taking you home. Regardless, it clearly does instill some fear in the young – though not enough, by our observations, to change their fairly rebellious Western garb, hair-dos, and make-up.
Afterwards we met up with Mom and hopped in a cab to find a place to eat. I did my usual grilling of the driver and he told us that in the early ‘80s he participated in planning a coup to overthrow Khomeini, was arrested, tortured a bit (“how do you think my nose got so flat”), and was released after 7 years. He said all of this so casually it was ridiculous. We got off at a hole-in-the-wall where we had delicious kabab and warm nan. At 1AM we, along with dozens of family members, headed to the airport to pick up Dad, Kia (my brother), and my aunt Bahar who were arriving from the U.S.. So the first time ever my nuclear family was in Iran together!The five of us spent the next day hanging out at the bazaar for a bit before ambling through a park where we discovered the phenomenon of brightly colored Sesame Street-looking public outdoor exercise machines – so funky. Kia and I played on them and it was like we were kids again – well not really, but anyway. That night we went back to Alighapoo, that restaurant with live music. This time, though the instrumentalists were again quite good, the singers were louder and even cheesier than last time. The second guy was just unforgettable. He looked and dressed like Neil Diamond but sang and generally behaved like Wayne Newton.
Every time he tried to carry a note while moving the mic away every so dramatically, we’d all bust up laughing so loud it was embarrassing. He was a really nice guy, though – he noticed some foreigners in the audience, most obviously an East Asian who seemed to be having a great time, and said: “We love people from every country. Let’s have a big round of applause for all the foreigners, including Koreans!” The next two days were spent with loads of family and some family friends, probably more than 40 people in total. It was great. One day people paraded in and out of our apartment to hang out and the next we went back to Ame Manijeh’s (Dad’s sister) for joking, eating, and generally chillin’. One night we went to Amu Reza’s and Kokab’s place for dinner. Oh my God, Kokab’s food is soooo good! The tachin, fesenjun, koobideh, goodness! Madh and I have determined that she is one of 3 supreme master chefs whom we met during our stay in Iran.
We continued to meet fascinating cabbies. Riding a cab in Iran can be both a life/limb-threatening Formula One 3D video game-like experience and phenomenally entertaining, even enlightening. One guy we met is a police officer moonlighting to make ends meet. You'd think knowing that should have shut us up a bit, but no. We had the usual political conversation and his comments were indistinguishable from anyone else's. It was just extra special coming from a cop. Another cabbie was a former book publisher who was just hilarious, even if in a macabre sort of way. In the insane Tehran traffic we got onto the topic of pedestrian casualties.
He said in Iran these incidences are always considered to be the driver’s fault and the penalty is at least $50K. Dad jokingly asked “What’s the punishment for running over a mullah?” The driver said “I don’t know, maybe they deport you to the U.S.. Come to think of it, in that case maybe I’ll run over two!” Later I pointed out a tree that was particularly beautiful and he quickly replied “Yeah, but it would be even prettier with a couple mullahs hanging from it.”
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