So Much Of That

You know it's always a right of everything natural and by the law of the land that at one point in time, things just had to turn really mucky.

For instance, your hard-earned pocket money went to that much desired popsicle. Only to have that last precious bite not to be savoured but falling with a dreaded splat on the burning tarmac. Your sad reflection on that little puddle, now running like fast tears, looking back at your stupidity, your own bad luck.

Or the time when you were rushing off to a sunset drink date and locked yourself out for good from your apartment? Reaching your compassionate landlady didn't get things fixed quite fast enough to render your arriving fashionably late. Only to find out later that date was an idiot and not worth the effort after all.

That you had a hard week and Friday looked like a good hint of heading off at clock-off. Then that rabbit-toothed boss of yours smugly slammed down a pile of "URGENT" proposal papers to be eyed through for thoroughness and accuracy despite your team's total effort in thumbing through those hundreds of pages as many times as the black willy hairs floating out of the pores on her upper lip. She wanted them by eight sharp on Monday for submission and she's counting on you. Turning on her heels, she sang out a goodbye and signed off her security card.

You found out that she went on medical leave due to "women's condition" on Monday. And the submission date was postponed to mid-week.

Thus, today began as an utter blind alley.

In other words, it was dud.

Lemon. Washout.

We departed after breakfast that was more like scooping up the remaining giblets of cucumber, sloshy tomatoes, one (1) slice of melon laying motionless with its invisible eyes beckoning me to surrender its will to my digestion so that it could do away with the sorrow of being unfit for consumption.

Nevermind that the driver drove like bats in the belfry. I gave up caring a long time ago since I arrived in Iran. It wasn't that it was worse than what I had encountered in the good parts of India, China, or even Turkey. But it was just a futile dispensation of my concern for my life. And we passed by the Zoroastrian's Tower of Silence as quickly as it appeared in our view. It was nothing entrancing. Modern roads burnt through its surroundings without a nod of its existence. An oddity formed by the sand processing plant stood out with its silo-looking furnace hoods while wind tunnels, badgir, grazed around like nonchalant clay giraffes. For reasons of hygiene, remaining observers of the faith had to bury their corpses within cemented lanes as dictated by the city council. Probably all the vultures left as well for they smelled too the sense of death to multi-genre of religious practices.

Stretching along the polluted 70km extension of tarmac lanes, we passed half-enthused shops mish-mashing between mechanics, pizza restaurants, insurance, and mostly graffiti-adorned steel shutters. Around the 50km mark, we reached Maybod, an old tired town mirroring its 1,800 years and beyond in age. There, in front of abandoned determination and giant effort to repress my rising fatal sense of disenchantment, laid the Narein Castle. A shadow of its former Sassanian glory, it was holding on to its crumbling 5,000 year-old foundation tiredly through the straw  and mud patches tiled on by the odd part-time worker to restore whatever was still standing within the moat. What I found more disturbing was the fact that for as little care the place received, it suffered tremendously from the amount of litter the city deemed fit to dispose of at its site.

There you go - historical destruction at its perfection.

Not too far away stood the once famous yakh dan, or ice house built during the Safavid period to store the blocks of ice cut out from the mountain water that was collected from the local qanat, as seen in the caravanserai opposite the building. The roof bore an air barrier 70cm thick to ensure that temperature was conducive to supply the wealthy of the city its demand for ice during the notorious hotter summer months. Today, the three-door entrance was reduce to just one. With a tired looking guard unlocking it for a glimpse inside what was, once upon a time, a great marvel of the city's ingenuity.

Last stop before we headed out, the pigeon tower. Besides being a guano tavern, the Persians believed that if a child was having difficulty learning how to speak, you went to buy some pigeon eggs to feed the poor fellow. So much that it worked fabulously that a traditional saying for anyone with an incessant need to chatter on will be termed as having "too much pigeon eggs". Charmed. But today, it was a special enough lone tower with hundreds of holes chipped neatly to provide what was once coo-ing beds for our winged friends. Except today, the government's effort to recreate a few stuffed models resulted in a disastrous depiction of the most Macabre kind. I stood listening to our guide next to one brown spotted mass of feather, with a massive exploded fluff of cotton bursting out of its chest and a missing head, judging from the rusty wire that was sticking out of its thoracic cavity.

Could this get any worse?

After our cowboy of a driver / guide honked us little travellers into his car, we were warned that there would be absolutely no provision for lunch and nothing to buy should we be so inclined to have a bite of the cream biscuit. Last stop was a dingy shop that sold from everything your plumber needed to mortar shells of sugar. Then we set off, into the wild dusty town of Chak Chak.

This was Iran's most revered Zoroastrian pilgrimage site. Its onyx inlaid of the holy temple attracted thousands during the annual festival happening around mid June. Other days around the year such as today, population was two fossils of caretakers that had skin like well-preserved prunes. Other than that, it was utter silence. And rubbish, dripping marks of rotten food, and burning plastic bottles littered the surrounding. Thus making it hard to fathom its privileged anointed destination for religious piety, instead a real nightmare of sacrilege taking place irrefuteable through the sights and smells.

At this point, I was decidedly scrapping the bottom of the pot for hope. We drove on to Kharanaq, reputed to be thousands of years in history, inhabited until roughly 60 years ago when the last dweller left for the modern trappings of flushing system, electricity, and Tehran's foul air. Today, only one small family remained and two goats named Billy and Nanny (of course I gave them those names!). The Qajar-inspired "shaking" minaret was perhaps more of a loose foundation, made looser due to every guide's intention to court the oohs and aahhs from amongst us that thought having a bit of fun with a degenerating building was something to think nothing of.

B.I.Z.A.R.R.E.

No kidding. The layers of mud drying on the exposed bricks and wood were peeling off like sunburned skin. The entire city laid above the plush emerald carpets of cultivation, walled by a granite row of rocky hills that was separated by a lone blue bulb formed by the tiny mosque's dome. I could only imagine the loop holes outside of every room or chamber, depending on its size, likely to have held the travelling horses that had rode against the desert ghosts. Oily, black walls would had emanated smells of burning bread, pipping stews, while lanes rang with the laughter of children hiding from busy adults, burdened by the daily rituals of chores and fixing required in a living town. Sad hornets buzzed above our heads, singing out as if they were bewildered to see visitors. The clear river running outside snaked around half of the old city's diameter without having a single hand dipping into it, with its current rushing on chasing time in an endless, futile, aimless race.

I posed under the shade of another caravanserai overlooking a lone rose garden tended by a middle-aged gardener that appeared uninterested in conversation. Ahead of me, an old man bowed over like a perfect comma, approached with a sickle in hand. Immaculately dressed in his humble shirt, vest and baggy trousers, the flaps of his torn hat flew about like a mad bird taking flight. The hump on his back was so pronounced, it made the old man looked like he had a tiny hill planted above his back permanently as if the gods had an ill sense of humour.

Coming closer, I could hear the scratchy sound his brown leather slippers made in contact with the armies of broken pebbles. Within earshot, he paused and greeted me with those wrinkled eyes that contained a wink of welcome and smile. Ones that your instinctive notion just knew that someone had taken the time to acknowledge you with goodness and graciousness. Fumbling in my extremely limited Farsi, I replied salam. He tipped his head and walked on towards the gardener. From a distance, I could hear him bellowing like all old people who had their hearing leaving them many years ago but not their desire to catch on the day's gossip and irresistible urge to impart knowledge through his many years of tending those budding stalks.

There and then, alone in the gentle afternoon wind, I felt for the first time that everything will be beautiful again.

Gateway Of Antiquity

Whoa... what can I say?

Completing the pilgrimage to Persepolis, or locally known as Takht-e Jamshid, was not just a mandatory trip down to one of the most well preserved ancient sites of a former glorious empire, its nearby tombs of the former great kings with resume detailing conquests covering almost every corner of the profitable routes and cities shone by the aging sun will not fail to impress even the harshest critic.

Humane sentiments found expression in the nobility and sheer beauty of the building: more rational and gracious than the work of the Assyrians or Hittites, more lucid and humane than that of the Egyptians. The beauty of Persepolis is not the accidental counterpart of mere size and costly display; it is the result of beauty being specifically recognised as sovereign value. - Arthur Upham Pope

 
Come to be blown away. The scorching heat crept quickly to uncomfortable limits and it was getting difficult to balance the sandy winds dancing in a desert ghoulish set across the rocky terrain that held the great halls and remnants of great courts, statues of religious and military importance, and the lasting marks of former colonisation as apparent from the missing columns and archaeology pieces, now resting their immortal sleep in the great museums akin to the Louvre and the British Museum. Interestingly, the content one playing second fiddle but no less stunning was the Naqsh-e Rostam bore equal resemblance of past lootings despite retaining quite well (given all the circumstances) its outer facade. What was left to the interior, I had no idea given the access was cut off from a lack of natural stairs or ladder that probably were removed long after anyone had bothered remembering. Any guess was as good as any conjured fantasy of the wildest, richest, and formidable amassing of empire wealth.

My contact with the locals was slow, albeit at the most unexpected times, we did make amazing progress given the considerations. Shiraz was much more relaxed (being a relative term here) yet I had quite a task to get a reciprocated smile from the women. Even the children held a curious but stony stare. Those that did pass a quick wave were far and few in between, but always appreciated.

We did meet a local boy who was learning to be a tour guide and he offered to take us around the city for free, in return to practice his English. Prior to breaking much of the ice, we began to learn that he hadn't yet acquired the finesse of listening and not shouting every sentence without a full-stop. Wanting very much to help out the locals, we tried to encourage him without succumbing to questions that went unanswered and a split eardrum.

But the Holy Shrine of Aramgah-e Shah-e Cheragh that he took us was blindingly spectacular. Walking past the strict security, we feasted upon the articulate inlaid glass frescoe within the tombs and peaceful compound punctuated by the hurricane waves of passing doves in a hour magical only by the extra touch of an unforgettable sunset amidst the chaos outside on the polluted roads and mad drivers. Finding my way around a new world through the wraps of my chador, I took myself by the hand and walked into the innocent chambers of wonderment that could only come when one stopped being obsessed with the incessant staring from a curious, strange world around you.

I must said that I wasn't exactly touching the pulse of the nation but so far, I was getting a sad vibe of indifference that was worn by many, but particularly any female above seven, underneath a layer of defiance and desire to break out and find the world beyond. I wasn't sure if many had settled to blend in and accept their resigned lot but there was a pervasive smell of putrid desolate defeat. Many international news websites were banned. Social networking? Forget it.

It seemed that the government was bend on closing their people's access with the world, "protecting" the precious sanctity of their Shiite devotion from the tarnishing effects of the "West" not realising at the same time, wiping away all the good and nurturing. Many we spoke with were admired for their dedication to their faith yet many more, especially from the younger generation, wished to leave. For every one that rebelled, more were imprisoned. There was no proper auditing and publication on where the funds were going. Public subsidisation did help a lot in building some of the best road infrastructure we can expect yet asked any Iranian, you would most likely to get a grim quiet confession on their distrust to hand the loaded gun to a child's hand when it came to nuclear energy development. They believed it would set Iran on the stage to become the sitting duck of international annihilation.

Yet more disturbingly, many didn't seem to be well informed regarding the general knowledge that could help to understand a past to build a better future. Shockingly, our new friend who took us around the shrine and back to meet his family, whom later treated us graciously to a simple but lovely dinner, got a vote of alarm from our books when he showed a complete disregard to his country's population, Zoroastrian, and the confrontational questioning about things beyond his own culture. It seemed he was totally subjected to the fact that it was "right" to want to cut the throat of Americans because they wanted to burn their Quran. I explained the full course of the recent debacle, and he was proven to be dispossessed of the complete, updated developments. I took pain to help him to understand that for one American and one monkey of a former president that had made the United States of America so unpopular, many more condemned the act of disrespecting the beliefs of others. We tried to help him with his questions, done unintentionally, on the acts of cremation adhered by the Hindu devouts in India. He seemed so out of touch and depth that it was disconcerting to see that a majority of Iranians could possibly be fed half the truth that was convenient to the propaganda's flavour of the month.

 

Like they said, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

They were still, very hospitable - making sure that we got home safely by squeezing us into a little road nightmare with the rest of the family. A very good opportunity to meet different perspectives but I was beginning to see clearly that beyond the much more promoted rights of women to education and access (such as independence to drive alone - in Saudi Arabia, you can forget about it), their hatred for everything Arabic (they believed, in their very words, those barbarians screwed up their culture by the massacre of their great books and relics) and the pondering of the world beyond. An old friendly tent maker asked us - "Is it better to move to Australia? How different is it? I have many friends here, but should I go for my children?"

Sadly, we didn't have the right answer.

How could we when I was still building a gradual understanding of the place and people? Who was I to hand over a solution?

That night, an earthquake, 6.1 on the Richter Scale hit the town for 15 seconds. More rushed out to the stairwell and we received an endless consolation of advice. This up until today, was the Iran that took us in with a full embrace. And just like a rotten functioning gate with a useless door-stop, it didn't pause in its wave of smiles and bitterness. There was welcoming happiness at times, but there was, not I hope to last though, an ongoing sense of loss and confusion about their identity and the future.


If this entry sounded all doom and gloom, then take heart. In the midst of the earthquake, I ran out into the emergency stairwell and turned to ask hubby "okay honey, now what?" in the most G.I. Jane manner tell-me-the-command-and-I'll-do-it, breathless and adrenaline-charged. Bless him, he not only didn't laugh at my face but adored me!


So you see? It pays to marry the right man because life will never cease to be positive even when you contemplate being possibly buried underneath some Persian rubble. You don't think about yourself, you just think about how to scurry off to look for oxygen pockets and drinking water for your beloved. And he? Just smiled that special smile that only a husband can give.


Call me the eternal sunshine optimist.