Revolutionary Ride

by Lois Pryce

  I soon discovered that their relaxed nature did not extend to their driving skills. The fringes of Shiraz consumed me like every other Iranian city; sprawling, manic multi-lane chaos. Horns, shouts, car radios and flashing neon Persian pounding my senses. Thick diesel fumes mingling with the sweet ripening fruit of roadside stalls, piles of shiny pomegranates at every junction, and trucks kicking up so much dust you could taste it in every breath. My heart gave its usual thud as I spotted a police car full of uniformed officers parked by a set of traffic lights. Did the Shiraz police force also live up to this laidback reputation? My thudding heart sank as the lights turned red, forcing me to sit there, next to the police car, while the traffic streamed and weaved across the junction in front of me for what felt like an age. But the police weren’t interested in me. It was the fruit seller next to them who was staring, mouth agape. He edged closer, eyebrows knitting in bemusement that verged on disbelief. I did my best to ignore him. Then he turned to the police, waving to attract their attention, then back to me again. I stayed focussed on the road ahead, a nervous jiggle taking over my leg as I silently urged the lights to change. Hassle with the Iranian police was the last thing I needed at the end of my journey.

  Red turned to green and I pulled away with a spurt of nervous throttle, glancing back over my shoulder. The fruit seller was pointing after me, and now he had the policemen’s attention; they had stepped out of the car. I just caught the amazement in his expression and the laughter erupting on the policemen’s face as the fruit seller pointed after me, made the universal motorcycle throttle action and then squeezed an imaginary pair of breasts on his chest. As I disappeared into the turmoil of Shiraz traffic, I noted with pleasure that his fruit stall had consisted of nothing but an enormous pile of melons.

  So here I was at last. Shiraz. The city that had summoned me. It felt livelier, louder and tattier than Isfahan with its refined boulevards, or Yazd with its tranquil antique alleyways. This was a working, moving, living city. As I picked my way through its streets, watching its men and women going about their business, chatting, laughing, shouting, shopping, bartering, I thought about Habib, and wondered if he was here somewhere amongst its 1.5 million citizens.

  I was eager to explore but a motorcycle is no way to get to the heart of a city, so I parked the bike in the underground car park of a hotel and set out on foot. I had long got over my Londoner’s discomfort about being approached by strangers; there was no place for that kind of personal privacy in Iran. But the Shirazis took it to a new level. I could not walk a block without being greeted by passers-by with varying levels of English. Often it was just the standard ‘Hello! How are you?’ as taught in schools and evening classes the world over.

  A middle-aged couple who spoke no English at all invited me to eat with them, beckoning and miming the process of putting food in their mouths. It was well meaning but so hopeless a lunch date that they settled for a selfie with me instead and left me with a pomegranate in each pocket. At the next block a young, irrepressibly camp guy in tight T-shirt and skinny jeans popped out of his mobile phone shop to hijack me for a quick English refresher.

  ‘I am studying your language but I forget a word, the word for when something is not straight. Please can you help me?’

  ‘Wonky?’

  ‘Ah yes, wonky, this is it. Wonky. Thank you!’ He touched his hand to his heart.

  But whenever I stopped for longer than a minute in a shop or café, or just to buy a bottle of water or a freshly made juice at a roadside kiosk, I was inevitably cornered for more meaningful conversation.

  ‘What do people think of Iran in your country?’ and ‘What do you think of Iran?’ The same questions I had heard echoing across the country. I tried to explain that people at home in England didn’t really know very much about Iran, that it wasn’t our fault, we’d been fed misinformation, for years, decades, centuries even. I thought back to my own feelings and misgivings before I left home and cringed at my ignorance.

  An elderly but sharp-witted woman took the opportunity to boast in the most charming manner about the academic successes of her children, all doctors and lecturers at Harvard, MIT and other faraway universities. She longed for them to return to Iran and bemoaned the situation that kept them away. ‘Things are bad here, the economy is bad. Everyone clever, everyone young goes away to America. This used to be a good place to live. If you had come here before, you would see it was different …’ she tailed off. I thought she meant before the sanctions, but when I pursued the subject she waved her hand as if to suggest the distant past and said, ‘Oh, no, no. Before 1979.’

  But not everyone had got away. The results of Khomeini’s revolutionary breeding programme were on full display in Shiraz. Young people filled the streets, particularly around the university campuses and in the tranquil corners of Eram Botanical Garden, the latter of which was known as a hotspot for furtive trysts. But their intentions were hardly the traditional teenage knee-trembler of a British alleyway, constituting nothing more shocking than an arm around a shoulder in a shady corner or a walk, hand in hand, through the flower beds.

  ‘This is illegal in Iran if you are not married,’ said a man’s voice behind me as I stood surveying the scenes around me. His name was Ahmad. He was taking a walk in the gardens with his wife and they offered to show me around. They pointed out groups of architecture students, sat on the grass, sketching the eighteenth-century pavilion, its reflection perfectly still in its ornamental turquoise pool. Later we strayed into the darker corners of the garden where less studious visitors had headed for the shadows, risking a chaste kiss beneath an overhanging branch. Peaches and the ever-present pomegranates hung like jewels around them and tiny birds darted among the bushes. The air was warm and fragrant, the atmosphere relaxed and unashamedly romantic.

  ‘Eram is from an Arab word, it means “paradise” or “heaven”,’ said Ahmad. He motioned towards a young couple sitting close together, hand in hand, on a rock beside a small man-made lake. ‘This is why people who are not married come to Eram, they know they will not be arrested.’

  ‘But surely the police know about this? They could come down here any evening and arrest everyone, couldn’t they?’

  ‘Ah, not in Shiraz. It is different.’ He smiled. ‘The police would not do that here. People are more relaxed here, even the policemen.’

  I told him about the car full of laughing policemen and the melon seller that had greeted me upon my arrival, and he laughed, nodding.

  ‘Yes, this sounds like Shirazi policemen, it is not like in the north of Iran, where I come from. They raid houses there, for parties and alcohol. Even in Tehran the police will arrest women because of their clothing every summer. This is why Shiraz is the best city in Iran. Here we like to talk, to read poetry, not to work too hard, and of course to eat. We are so relaxed here, we have a saying, “Eating a meal is like taking a bullet, you must lie down immediately.”’ He laughed again out loud. ‘Come to the tomb of Hafez, it is not far. Here you will understand about Shiraz.’

  As we walked, Ahmad spoke of his love for his adopted city but was equally passionate about his desire to get out of Iran. He was yet another of Iran’s young, urbane computer programmers; there seemed to be a glut of them. Almost every young man I spoke with worked in the tech business, and all were desperate to ply their trade in the free West.

  ‘I email my resumé to a company every day,’ he told me. The weariness of his fruitless campaign showed on his face and in his voice.

  ‘Where to? Where do you want to live?’

  ‘Anywhere. I apply to firms in America, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany …’ he tailed off. ‘I will go anywhere.’

  He said his best chance was Canada or Australia, where they had programmes for accepting skilled workers. Some of his friends had made it to Toronto, and some distant members of his family had sought asylum in London after the revolution. I told him about Hossein, who I’d met in Ramsar and who had made the journey to
a new life and a highly paid tech job in Canada, but who’d returned home after four years, pining for the ‘real life’ of Iran.

  Ahmad was dismissive. ‘Hah, he will change his mind soon enough.’

  We were walking through the packed, brightly lit streets. Ahmad said it was like this every night, that Shirazis liked to get out and enjoy themselves, this is what they lived for. Restaurants were full, shops still buzzing after dark, and of course picnickers making the most of every patch of grass. Ahead of us a crowd filled the pavement and I realised we had arrived at the site of Hafez’s tomb.

  It was not until I saw the throng that I fully grasped the significance of Hafez in the everyday lives of Iranians. His name and poetry had cropped up everywhere along my journey; on ornamental tiles on grand buildings and in the most rundown hotel, and the book of his poems, the Divan-e Hafez, was to be found in everyone’s house, no matter what their political or religious inclinations. His lines were dropped into conversations and newspaper articles, used as sayings and proverbs, and pinned on walls of cafés and shops alongside quotes from the Quran and pictures of Khomeini, although unlike these two other omnipresent icons of Iran, Hafez seemed to have the effect of unifying the Iranian people. His poems epitomised the Iranian mindset; passionate and opinionated but laced with humour and a lust for life. His moral and religious messages had elevated him to oracle status, but they sat comfortably alongside admissions of human frailty and decadence, including plentiful references to desire, wine and drunkenness. And just like the twenty-first-century Iranians I had met, from tech-savvy young guns to devout traditionalists, Hafez’s world was a harmonious blend of the mystical and the human, as if no conflict existed between the two.

  The crowds milled peacefully outside the entrance to the tomb, while inside the gates families, friends and couples walked together around the small pillared mausoleum, many of them holding the Divan, opening it randomly and whispering his words to each other, using them as a prophecy. All around me, people of all ages were huddled on benches in the surrounding garden, performing the same ritual. I could not imagine such scenes at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey or Shakespeare’s tomb at Stratford-upon-Avon. This was a joyful, egalitarian celebration of art and life, with none of the stuffiness or elitism we associate with poetry back home.

  ‘There is a tradition we have, it is called Fal’e Hafez,’ explained Ahmad. ‘It means “Ask Hafez”. Every year, on the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year, we gather with our families, we eat pistachio nuts and fruits and we say, “Fal’e Hafez”. Then we open the Divan to see what he says about our future, or to seek his advice about our problems.’

  ‘What kind of problems?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, any kind, all things … work, love, family, life …’

  Outside on the street, old men and young boys were making half-hearted attempts to hustle the crowd. They had little yellow canaries on their shoulders and were calling out, ‘Fal’e Hafez!’ In their hands they held a small wooden box stacked with coloured cards. I handed over a ‘one Khomeini’ note, and waited as the boy, a ragged kid no more than ten years old, motioned to his bird. It took a couple of muttered instructions but eventually, alighting from his master’s shoulder, the canary landed on the box, pecked at a card and held it in his beak, head twitching. The boy passed it to me with a smile that failed to hide his tiredness and boredom, his eyes as dull as the canary’s were bright.

  Staring at a mass of illegible Persian squiggles, I asked Ahmad to translate Hafez’s prediction for my future. He read it through silently first, then translated, slowly, phrase by phrase: ‘All your friends will abandon you … everything you try will fail … But … this is OK, because … it is God’s will.’

  ‘Well, that’s the last time I bloody well fal’e Hafez,’ I said.

  Despite Ahmad’s gloomy translation of Hafez’s prediction, I took him and his wife for a meal, escaping the heat of the night in a cool cellar restaurant. I warned them that I would have no truck with ta’arof, a stance that caused much concern and flapping around among the staff when it came to paying the bill – whispering to Ahmad, ‘Your guest is trying to pay!’ We lounged against cushions on the traditional low bedlike seats, our food spread out over the faded carpet before us, and talked of everyday life in Iran. Ahmad bemoaned the poor wages in the IT sector, the lack of opportunities, the restrictions and repression of life in the Islamic Republic, even here in laidback Shiraz, where he and his wife had both migrated in the hope of grasping some small freedoms. His wife, who had a stylish geek-chic look going on with vintage heavy-framed glasses, chunky jewellery and Converse hi-tops, bemoaned the sartorial dictates of the ayatollahs.

  ‘We are not religious, you see,’ said Ahmad.

  I was surprised. It was the bluntest statement of atheism I had heard in my time in Iran. Most people who spoke about such matters fell into the category of the ‘secular Muslim’, a loose description that allowed them to enjoy un-Islamic activities and criticise the government, but meant they still tipped a respectful nod to their upbringing and culture. But Ahmad put me straight on that right away.

  ‘Most people of our age are not religious. Why would we want to be? Look around you.’

  ‘Were you brought up as a Muslim? Are your parents religious?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, we both were brought up as Muslims. But we have seen what religion does. I do not want any part of this. We have a young son, he is seven years old and we are not bringing him up to be religious. My parents understand this, they do not mind. Lots of young people feel like this, especially in Shiraz, and in all the cities.’

  I was intrigued at how Shiraz had acquired this reputation as Iran’s liberal enclave. Ahmad was a straight-talking, rational-minded westernised software developer with an eye permanently fixed on the outside world, and this aspect of the city was the main reason for his move here. I asked him how this image of Shiraz had formed, expecting him to provide me with some analysis about the effect of the university and its large student population, or how, as the home of Hafez and Saadi’s poetry, Shiraz had attracted artists over the centuries and formed a creative hub. Or even how the rebellious Bahá’í religion had begun here. But he leaned back into the cushions and made an expressive wave of his arm.

  ‘It is because, to the south of Shiraz,’ he said, gazing into the distance, ‘there is a great salt lake, Maharlu Lake. The water is pink and when the air is hot, special fumes rise and float into the city. These make the Shirazis very dreamy and relaxed and it has a special effect on our minds.’

  I had a feeling that Hafez would have been proud of him.

  Wishing Ahmad and his wife goodbye and good luck with his job applications, I took a cab back to the hotel, passing the sixties modernist university campus set high up in the hills, jutting out of the cliffs like a futuristic sculpture. Although late on a weeknight, every street still teemed with life and traffic. We joined the cars shunting bumper to bumper on the bridge over the dried-out rocky bed of the Roodkhaneye Khoshk, the seasonal river that bisects the city, before passing the Arg-e Karim Khan, the late eighteenth-century citadel in Shiraz’s central square, gloriously exotic with its softly illuminated turrets and towers. The taxi driver was cheery and valiant in his attempts at English, and when he stepped out of the cab, unusually, he shook my hand as he said goodbye. This had happened a few times in Shiraz and I wondered if it was a conscious move on the part of the Shirazis to demonstrate their liberal, anti-establishment credentials.

  ‘My name is Habib,’ he said after he had wished me good luck for my onward journey

  My heart gave a little jump. ‘Habib! Really?’

  ‘Yes …’ He looked amused, if a little confused at my sudden interest.

  ‘Have you ever been to London?’

  He shook his head and repeated the same mantra I had heard all over the country: ‘No, I would very much like to visit London. I have never left Iran, it is very difficult to travel with an Iranian passpo
rt.’

  I told him about my Habib and he smiled. ‘I think there are many Habib in Shiraz, maybe many thousands of us. And many in London too.’

  I nodded. ‘You’ll do,’ I said.

  Before he got back in his cab he removed his house keys from their key ring, passing it to me and touching his hand to his heart. ‘From the people of Shiraz to the people of London,’ he said. The key ring was a miniature model of Hafez’s tomb. Habib, my Iranian everyman, disappeared into the traffic with a clatter of loose exhaust brackets and a lungful of black smoke, waving out of the window all the way.

  As I had discovered over the last 3,000 miles, Iranian hospitality knows no bounds, and is inevitably extended to friends, family and associates who are rounded up to take care of you, passing you along from post to post, like a package on the Pony Express. In the spirit of this tradition, Omid had offered to put me in touch with an old friend of his in Shiraz, a former army general who had fought in the Imposed War. He had not been as fortunate as Mr Yazdani, and an explosion in a minefield had destroyed both his legs. He lived with his wife but in a semi-hermit state, supported by a military pension and prosthetic limbs.