Of all the countries I’ve visited (not many lol), the one which fascinated people a lot is Iran. and honestly for me, it was the most fascinating. Been to Mashhad (my least favourite), Tehran, Babusar (Caspian beach) and Isfahan (my favourite). Ask me anything
Surprising observations: Lots of women participation in society. Women on the roads, women driving buses. I remember we called a plumber and my mom told me to cover up since the plumber was coming. Ran for my chador. The plumber was a young woman
Surprising observation 2: lots of romance on the street that I as a Pakistani don’t even get to see inside homes. Nearly every couple on the street holding hands. It was stirring to see as desis where you never see men and women hold hands
Surprising observation 3: segregation is bad IMO but it also had some good side effects. I have always disliked vacations with family since as the only daughter it meant sitting on the sidelines while my brothers did stuff like bungee-jump/cliff dive, things women don’t do
So at Babusar, when my dad said let’s go to the beach, I assumed it would just be one of those days of sitting at a distance, watching the boys have fun. But there were segregated beaches, which meant I could swim as well in w/o clothes I wanted.
State of the art water parks would have equal amount of ladies days and men’s days. The one day we were in Masshad, their excellent quality water park was a woman’s day, which prompted much tantrums by my brothers about how unfair it was. Welcome to my 24/7 boys
More observations: it gets flack for being theocratic but people in the major cities are quite secular. Very unlike Pakistani society, where the upper and middle class also lap up rel dogma. You can see this in their art and their excellent cinema
Most surprising observation: Iran’s national food should be pizza. They have an absolute love affair with it. Every corner of every street has pizza. It’s madness. My dad in the end banned us from having pizza
When I visited, Ahmedinijad was still in power but when we talked to people about him, he was extremely unpopular. He was holding on to the last hopes of power by empowering the religious police, who were basically your Punjab police bothering couples. I had my interaction
With them as well when I was on a speedboat on the sea, and there came a horn from a nearby boat. It was the religious police’s boat whose duty was to sail AT sea to see if women were observing their hijabs properly while on a freaking speedboat. Mine must’ve slipped up a bit
Iran holds a lot of Imams dear. They celebrate their birthdays by distributing sweets and with national holidays. And I mean A LOT. This means every other day there was some celebration and I had a lot of free sweets. I imagine there must be many national holidays too
Because of sanctions, you won’t see any of the international brands we see everywhere. This means no Coke, no Pepsi, no McDonald’s, Kfc, snickers, ANYTHING. Everything is local there, which can be a bit jarring for my American MNC adjusted self
Instead of Coke, they had kind of the same drink but its name was Khushguwar, which I would always point out was also a word in Urdu. They had the exact same local alternatives for Fanta, snickers etc.
Men greet each other by kissing twice on the cheeks- an experience extremely uncomfortable for my Pashtun patriarchal father Lol
At that time (nearly ten years ago), the visa we obtained very easily. They were desperate to have tourists. Iranian people would serenade and ask us what we thought of the country- there was a deep feeling of being misunderstood
My dad’s name is Umar but he took us kids aside and told us to just say Muhammad Khan if anyone asked us and to be very careful with our speech, so not to betray that we were Sunni
Going there I realised what a vastly different society Indo-Pak is from Iran. But the one thing we have in common is how every passing person on the street will have a shair (poetry verse) ready to inject in every conversation.
We stopped to visit the tomb of Firdousi’s grave too, and I wish I knew at that age how significant that was. Also wish we could’ve visited Hafez’s and Sham’s grave as well
Just like there’s a picture of Mao in nearly every shop in China, there’s a picture of the Ayotullah everywhere. Right as you set off from Masshad’s airport, there was a huge billboard saying something like “long live the rev” “enemies of the revolution will perish”
Most of the young people I talked to, just like in Pakistan, most of them wanted to leave. Many of them were highly educated but there was an absolute dearth of jobs at that time (2012). A lot of them wanted more freedom and told me explicitly they didn’t agree with their govt
A funny incident that happened: we fell short of sanitary napkins. Imagine stuck in a city where no one speaks your language, a supposedly conservative place, hunting for pads. I dunno how, but after searching for hours (with my dad confused on what we wanted to buy)
Through some kind of sign language, my mom managed to signal to a shop owner that we needed pads. I don’t know how she was able to pull it off tbh.
Because at that time, (nighttime) we couldn’t find any malls. There was just small khokas. Imagine signaling to khoka owners that you need pads😬😬😬
I’ve been to Turkey, India, Italy, Netherlands, UK and China. I’ve found Iranian women the most beautiful. How they get around dress codes to look THAT good. when I went to the water park and they took off their hijabs, I was like WOW...although there is a hair dyeing epidemic.
One thing that may surprise you: Tehran had a great clean underground Metro. They were building one in Isfahan when I went. The buses were top quality.
The hijab laws vary according to the city. In Masshad I was poked by a stick to correct my chador. In Tehran women push it to outrageous lengths- basically a Reham Khan dupatta style. In shops in Tehran and Isfahan, maxis and short dresses line the rack.
Hope y’all enjoyed the thread. I’m off for now🙂
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