Monar Jomban (part 1 of 4)

August 2006

“Esfahan what can I write about you which has not been written before.” I quote a forgotten writer who was apparently jailed and then killed, perhaps for his writings. He was an Esfahani. I am not- but I realise that big cities and old ones, have tales to tell that no one has written before – each of us try to write incomplete tales trying to capture the elusive whole. But it remains elusive still.

I reach Esfahan at the break of dawn – 5.30 a.m., the train which had struggled to pierce the darkness and the unyielding desert sand all through the night finally reached its destination – a bare platform, set in the sandy yellow background. The main station hall is imposing – very imposing, huge arches, tall ceiling, majestically lighted and completely lifeless. The information counter is manned by a woman with a lilting voice. I wait for my turn while the old man ahead of me keeps getting more and more perplexed. There seems to be a terrible mix-up in his train schedule – he will definitely miss his connection to somewhere.

My turn, I draw in my breathe, ‘farsi nemidoonam’ (which means I can’t speak Farsi in Farsi)

“But I can speak English”, she answers charmingly, “Where are you from?”

“India”

“All Indians are very big”, She observes smugly.

It irks me, I smile- “No, only well-fed Indians”.

Taxi and destination details done we come out, and all of a sudden the grand station pales to insignificance compared to the landscape. I have never seen such majestic mountains- tall, big, bare and sudden. They seem to appear all of a sudden at the edge of the horizon and are so grandiose in their expanse. Only the blue sky above seems anywhere comparable. They actually look like gigantic pyramids for unknown pharaohs - guarding the dead but as if with life of their own. I am overwhelmed.

Half an hour down I am rattling down the streets of Esfahan in the dilapidated Paykan which must have a mileage of about half a kilometre to a litre, but where petrol is cheaper than water- way cheaper at 10 litres to a dollar ‘who cares?’ The roads are absolutely deserted – not one living soul anywhere in sight. I miss India where the ubiquitous dogs, an occasional bull and a stray pig even, would give you company any time of the day or night, anywhere. My over imaginative mind is titillated, aided by lack of sleep the night before, – this is the fairyland where everybody has been asleep for the last thousand years because of the sleeping princess, and would remain so till the Prince Charming comes and kisses her awake. But the never-ending rows of very western apartments and malls jar my thoughts, and I find myself tuning in to the more mundane speculations of my companions. Long straight avenues lined with Chinar trees in the middle – the shady walks for the pedestrians and the cyclists, bifurcate the road. And then I catch sight of the river – running through the middle of the city and along it, with six bridges crisscrossing its course one after the other. The beauty of the flowing water is palpable. But this account is not about the breathtaking beauty of Esfahan – my words are too inadequate to capture it. No this is about the Monar Jomban, the shaking minarets of Esfahan, - not the actual ones which have been under repair for the past one year. This account is about my chance meeting with one poet, one carpet seller, three dancing girls and a fallen philosopher.

The Poet, Sio-Seh-Pol
It is 6.30 pm, - hard to imagine, as the sun is still high up in the western horizon. The Chahar Bagh Avenue, on which we are strolling, suddenly bumps on to the river – and it is breathtaking. The Sio-Seh-Pol – bridge of 33 columns, arches stands over the river before us, and it is less imposing than its photographs, all of them seem to have been taken during night. We head for the tea shop underneath the first arch, - stone cobbled projections- three of them, jut out right on to the river- water gushing all around. The first two projections are for men – and there are many of them, solitary as well as in groups. Smoke from the hookahs mingles with the notes of the solitary singer singing to the tune of his guitar – the whole atmosphere seems poetic somehow.

We head for the third projection – a hand written sign in English identify it as the ‘Family Section’. We order tea and settle down on a table over looking the river. Zyandeh Rud must be a perennial river - it is the height of summer and yet the river is flowing, gurgling right up to the steps on both sides. The three of us are captivated by the beauty of the setting. Kabeer is facing the river, Rahul too, and I am looking at the other tables to decipher what other delicacies the place had to offer; words are few and far in between. The speed with which Kabeer is eating the zaffrun tinged misri which had come with our tea, I am afraid we would have to supplement it, and soon. And that is when the poet appeared – he had a name but how does it matter. Short by Iranian standards, square faced, a hand made cigarette dangling from his lips- with a cup of tea and a folder of loose sheets in either hands.

“Hello! From India, right?” he asked.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I am a poet, I observe people, I get to know. So what are you doing here? Tourist?”

While debating on whether to share the long explanation for the purpose of our visit or to just go ahead with his deductions, we just smile noncommittally, and let him continue. It seems he is not looking for an answer anyway.

“Fine! So you have time and are not really rushing anywhere. Or are you the types who want to tick off all the monuments listed in the Lonely Planet, photograph them profusely, and strike the place off from your travel map? Something like the Americans or the Japanese if you may please.”

We are warming up to him. We haven’t had a chance to talk to anybody here at any length- nothing beyond the pleasantries, the language being a big barrier and of course due to the overwhelming concern for being politically correct.

“So you tell us what should we see in Esfahan?” I ask.

“Oh! Esfahan takes a lifetime to absorb, it is spread over several centuries you see, take this Sio-Seh-Pol –you may like to spend months just in this tea shop- and then when you have had enough of this place you can go across to the one on the other side of the river. Sio-Seh-Pol – every arch one can hang on for hours at an end – dangling one’s legs with the water gushing by- lighted arches above you merging with their reflections in the river. Not that I deny the majesticism of the Imam Square, and the palaces and the gardens and the mosques of Esfahan, shady walks along the river with amateur groups singing songs of time immemorial – getting to know Esfahan, my friends, is a life time commitment. But my city Esfahan, is not all about the sensual beauty of its physical manifestations, it is also the storehouse of a thousand sighs, of dreams unfulfilled, of a collective feeling of enormous emptiness. How would you see that? You would need to be an Esfahani, nay, not just that, you need to be a poet too.”

Suddenly he stops and looks intently at someone who seems to us a casual bystander leaning on the barricade apparently to get a better view of the river below. She is dressed in a Khaki monteaux (the prescribed dress for women at work in Iran), head covered according to the norm and sturdy looking shoes on her feet. The only significant thing about her probably is that she seems to be standing slightly too close to our group than probably what the standard norm for privacy demanded. The poet lowers his voice to a theatrical whisper, “She is spying on me – you know my phones at home are probably tapped – they always keep tabs on me. But I am smart, I am a good worker in the office, and dumb too, they do not even know that I speak English.”

Considering the fact that he is speaking flawless English this seemed incredible. Slightly flustered being ensconced in a conspiratorial huddle, I blurt, “How does that matter, I thought being able to speak in English was at a premium in Iran?” I tell him about the pink and green and blue fliers which were handed over to us on walk to the river by young men and women, each of them advertising in very exaggerated English about the success rate of one or the other ‘Spoken English’ centres that seemed to be flourishing all over the place. I had stopped to collect one, mistaking it to be some political flier of the famous student movement of Iran.

“Oh! That is different that is safe, but if a person like me knows English then I must be an American spy. The connections are very simple in Iran and as you can see very complex too. A foreigner like you would miss out the real meaning of all utterances here. For example a remark like ‘Are you feeling well?’ can actually mean ‘I think you are touched in the head’. Coming back to knowing English – we have thousands of Europeans visiting and yet if you get even slightly intimate with any of them you are under suspicion.”

I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of the conversation and Rahul is trying hard to keep Kabeer occupied, he is definitely getting very fidgety with all this meaningless conversations. Suddenly the poet turns to Kabeer and says,

“Hey, friend! Would you like me to show you around Esfahan?”

The poet’s American accent is completely incomprehensible to Kabeer and he has only two options for response in such a case, either a nod of agreement or a vehement no. After some consideration Kabeer settles for the latter.

“Why, my friend, you do not like me my Dust? But I am a really nice guy; I’ll take good care of you. Let me write you a poem – may be you would like that.” He digs out a small piece of paper from the loose pile in his hand and bends down to write.

Meanwhile I observe him without trying to look too obvious about it – the minute details – like finger nails and such. Stubby fingers with a dent on the fore and the middle- cigarette holding I suppose or is it because of the pen; a blue stubble, faint cologne….. but what catches my attention the most are two lesions on his lips –one on each. They looked ugly and the cigarette bobbing over them make it uglier. Kabeer somehow wants to keep away from him, instinctively, - I see Kabeer brushing aside the stray finger of the poet which had crept up to caress his cheek. Our poet writes on - neat pointed letters, as if he had picked up his written skills from the printed books.

“Here my friend - something to remember me by.” He holds out the piece of paper to Kabeer who makes no move to accept it.

“I cannot understand English very well” Kabeer says stubbornly in English.

I try to make up for Kabeer’s churlishness, “Let me see”. I take the piece of paper from him.

The lines are beautiful, and the thought expressed with a graceful parsimony – like a pencil sketch. I forget the lines – the paper blew away in to the river soon after the poet left, but the thought remained. It was something like: I have seen the tears on the window pane when the rain falls, and when I write my name on it, it dissolves into tears. A poem which somehow seems to fit into the mood created.

The poet turns his attention back to us, “So what do you think of Iran? Tell me I am interested to know your impressions.”

I haltingly attempt to repeat our stock answer to this question, trying to make it sound original after having repeated it for about a hundred times in the last one month or so – something to the effect that it is different from what the media paints it to be, it is beautiful and yet complicated…..and as usual gradually breaking away into a smile.

He does not seem much interested in our response and shifts gear again as he has been continuously doing all this while.

“And India, what do you think of India?”

I am taken aback, “What do you know about India? Films I guess.” I counter.

“Forget it, those boringly long audio visuals do not interest me in the least, how can anybody take them seriously, I wonder. For everything wrong there is Pakistan to blame and the terrorists too – no food, must be the bad guys, no water - them again, war – ditto, no jobs –same guys, I daresay, in India, even if your wife runs away with another man – he must be a damn Pakistani. I saw a film where these serious looking stuffy bastards, ostensibly from the Indian armed force were discussing patriotism and planning to kill the green traitors across the border. I would vouch that nobody in the whole unit - actors, directors or the script writer had ever been anywhere near a battlefield. The hero blabbering away about motherland and such like stuff, utter nonsense, preposterously pompous, I laughed through the movie. And every once in a while he would go and pray to a black penis of gigantic proportions. I was relating this very humorous story to a friend’s wife in a party. Friend, the host took me aside and asked me to leave. He said, “You are drunk and you are insulting a lady”. God, I was thrown out of a party for relating the story of a patriotic film from your country – I was accused of being obscene.”

The cat seems to have got my tongue. I am disturbed and confused – are we really so ridiculous – and it takes me to come across the Hindukush to discover this.

The poet has not finished, after a long drag on the cigarette he continues, “You know why we like your ridiculous films – that is because we are so damn lonely. Each one of us, we do not trust each other – you do not know for sure about anyone, you want to keep away to avoid hurt and persecution. And yet in these films one gives himself up in abandon – like a fantasy trip. But why do I complain, loneliness is everywhere. One of my friends got a job in Switzerland. He was going away for good – he had told no one and yet all of us knew. I had gone to see him off at the airport – final goodbyes; such occurrences are common in my country. And then four months later I met him in a mall in Esfahan. “Why dost, why are you back? What happened?” I asked him when we were alone.

He smiled and replied, “Nothing, nothing really happened, life was full of plenty, I had no need, but I had no one to talk to. Three months passed by without me opening my mouth except for to buy toiletries in the neighbourhood department store. When one day I resolved to speak to a somewhat friendly looking guy I had been noticing for some weeks in a children’s park I went to every evening. I said ‘greetings’ in Swiss and, guess what I discover? That man was an Iranian like me. I packed my bag and left the next day. I had gone away from here to see the whole world and in the whole world over the only friendly guy turns out to be a fellow Iranian. I just had to return.”

I do not remember now, exactly how we parted – I do remember of having fixed a rendezvous for the next day at the tea stall on the other side of the bridge at 7.30 pm. He had said ‘let it not be binding on either of us, whoever reaches would wait for fifteen minutes and then move on. If we get a chance we will renew our acquaintance afresh else khoda hafez.’

We could not go to the river the next day. But that evening we walk for hours along the Zyandeh Rud, we go right up to the sixth bridge – Pole-Khajoo. We eat ice creams on the banks of the river, sit on the steps dropping pebbles in to the flowing water and watch it change colours from an indescribable green to foaming black. Waft of oriental songs sung in the throaty strong voice so typical of Persia float towards us with the breeze, and as we walk along we came upon the group of amateur singers. Mostly youth in their late teens and early twenties, all with long curly hair and guitars – the rhythmic swaying of the curls and the utter absorption with themselves, in complete oblivion of the surroundings, remind one of the Sixties, the hippie movement. Sweet smell of something familiar mingled with the wet breeze, was this grass? We wonder. Later we came to know that Esfahan is the most important drug trafficking centre of Iran falling bang on the drug route from Afghanistan to the Europe. Over half of the young persons in the city were addicts according to an unofficial estimate. Possession of drugs carries capital punishment, but who cares if you are young and an Iranian? There is a dare and that is all.

Next to the fourth bridge the gardened paths on the banks breaks into a huge cemented quadrangle. And what a spectacle we see there. Boys of all shapes and sizes and age were skating there- and though the place is teeming with skaters, they manage to avoid each other all the while executing extremely skilful manoeuvres. But one boy in particular catches our attention, he is doing something different from the crowd, he is on a sports bike, actually the bike seems to have been welded to his beautiful body. Watching them together, one has this surreal impression that the vitality of the boy has somehow flown into his inanimate partner and it has come alive too. The boy and the bike are locked in an intricate dance to an inaudible tune. Built like an Adonis, fair complexioned, curly brown hair, this boy seems oblivious to everything else except for his partner, waltzing away together all over the quadrangle, from one corner to the other. He is dancing for himself, no applause is sought and none forthcoming too. We watch him for sometime, mesmerised by this magnificent display, and then move on. It is late when we come back to the hotel and we are very exhausted.