Monar Jomban (part 3 of 4)

Esfahan, day four, and our last day here. We had taken the guided tour of the city yesterday and for 2800 tomans (about 33 dollars) each, traversed through the remains of three millennia of civilisation – from the Zoroastrian fire temple which is said to be 2500 years old to the Greek Orthodox church of the 19th century – we saw them all in a blur, crisscrossing the Zyandeh Rud several times over. But what really mesmerised us were the memories of the Safavid dynasty of the medieval Iran, when Esfahan was the capital, preserved in the grand palaces, the imposing bridges, the magnificent mosques and the luxurious gardens, for their historical relevance and tourist interests. The majestic Jameh- Masjid, in the centre of the old city, had apparently survived earthquakes and fire, aerial bombs and several rulers. It still stands tall in its grandeur combining the creativity of craftsmen for over 700 years imprinted in the brickwork of the great mosque. We saw the Chehel-So-tun Palace with its slender and never-endingly long wooden pillars –twenty of them, supporting the gigantic wooden pavilion above and reflected in the pond below – making forty of them. The palace derives its name – ‘palace of forty pillars’, from this. We were enthralled by the profusion of visual pleasures, lovingly explained to us by an old English teacher of Iran who has to supplement his monthly pension by working as a tourist guide. He is lucky, he loves his job, most others do not, as we discovered during our stay in Iran. He did not hurry us, though every once in a while he would say ‘Aghaye befarmid’ (reverend gentlemen, please) gently prodding us on – he had only half a day to get the seven-seater back to our starting point. But by the end of the day we were full to our brims and wanted no more.

Today we want to go back to our first love – the gently flowing Zyandeh Rud and its green banks. We want to bid our goodbyes to this city unhurriedly, by spending some silent moments with its companion the Zyandeh Rud. So in the morning we head for the river in a leisurely walk.

We settle down under a tree near the Pole-Khajoo, there are very few people here at this time of the day. The sun is filtering through the Chinar leaves, the green and white river gently flowing below us and the cool breeze on my face (the rest of me was covered from head to toe, according to the strict and austere dress code of Iran) felt as if an unknown artist is delicately putting the finishing touches on a beautiful portrait and every once in a while dipping his brush into the flowing water. I feel so special, I do not move, I do not feel like moving, the whole effect is soporific, and I am afraid I was dozing when Kabeer, my son ask me loudly whether there were any more buns.

I had vaguely registered some human movement when Kabeer called out in ‘Hindi’, I wake up some, and was unhurriedly rummaging through our backpack for the extra pack of biscuits we always carried, when I am startled by a shrill loud exclamation:

‘H – I – N – D’

I look up to three ruddy faces – bursting with excitement. They are blabbering away a barrage of exclamations and questions at me in rapid Farsi. This must be another case of Hindi film mania – we have got used to this. Iranians we have discovered in the last one month are passionate about films – especially Bollywood films. They know the stars, they know the songs and the dance and they know the dialogue even – albeit in Farsi. We have seen a bearded Khomeini look-alike Iranian break into a lusty love song right on the steps of the Imam Mosque in Esfahan, and the good looking janitor who could reel of all the Film Fare awardees for the best actor, actress, support, director and even light and camera over a decade, not counting the endless curiosity we face in everyday conversation with young and old in the streets of Babol and Teheran. But up till now all the persons whose enthusiasm we have tried to match and deal with about Hindi films, have been men – but these three young women, practically girls were in their late teens.

I give a huge smile and nod, “Yes, I come from India”.

They all swoop down around me in one gliding motion, and sitting on their haunches start examining me with great curiosity. They use all their senses to size me up – they are looking at me from such close quarters that suddenly I feel like a three day old stale chicken being passed off for a fresh one.

One of them comes right next to me and inhales deeply – Oh! My God! I hadn’t had a bath today. I am still reeling when the other girl jabs her stubby finger at my chest and said:

“Are you really from India?”

“Yes”, I say uncertainly.

“Whooo-oopee”, she whistles sharply two fingers in her mouth the regular tapori (urchin) style. I am shocked. But before I can recover the third asks:

“Are you Bombay?”

“Err – No!”

“You Love Salman Khan?” She makes a lewd gesture – lazily flicking her red tongue over her glossy red lips.

“Er, no…….” I am positively stammering.

“Sharukh Khan …. Aamir Khan” She continues while slowly gyrating her pelvis and bumping against me. I am feeling desperate.

“No, no, ….. I see them only in films.” I try to smile while pulling away from her.

By this time I can feel Rahul and Kabeer are getting restless – they are out of the action and could do nothing to relieve me.

But the girls are relentless; they are actually warming up to the chance encounter.

“I love Salman Khan – I love his body, I love his dance – I love his song – I can eat him – I love him so much.” The girl questioning me continues in a sing-song voice. She is slowly rising up in a snake dance motion and I thought she would break into a full fledged twirl when the other girls pull her down.

I have started distinguishing the girls now – all in their late teens and two of them obviously sisters. The two sisters are also the most vocal in gestures and words, very beautiful but in a loud sort of way – blood red glossy lips, mascaraed eyes with false eyelashes, rouged cheeks, and streaked hair peeping from their head gear. The elder sister has a beauty mole on her chin, natural I would guess, but it is the younger sister who seems the most excited - she seems to be on a high. Is she really on drugs –at this time of the day? I wondered. The third girl is more ordinary looking – sturdily built with square blunt features – she is not participating much except for breaking down into a helpless giggle every once in a while. She seems the most sensible to me so I try to focus on her – I smile at her.

But the younger sister is tugging at my head gear.

“No earrings – not even a small one”, (She pushes up my sleeves), “No bangles – Agaye’s (gent’s) watch” (indicating at the large gents watch, the only ornament I am wearing). And before I could intervene she puts a hand deep inside the sedate neckline of my upper garment – I jerk upright – what the hell is happening here? What are the girls trying to do…..I am completely put off gear by this sudden attack. And then I register the disappointment on her face as she slowly withdraws her hand from my body and says,

“No in the neck also” she pouts.

I try to smile weakly – my lack of embellishment becomes a matter of grave concern for these three young strangers.

“Are you pooor – very pooor? No money in India?

I try unsuccessfully to say something to explain my situation, to assuage their concern, all the while being cautious to take evasive action in case of another assault. They are not interested.

“What do you do?”

Even in my predicament I notice that these girls are interested to know what I did and not Rahul, my husband. In my own country even relatively familiar people assign the role of the bread-earner to the husband, that is the norm, and if you are an exception then you are just about that, only.

“I …..we are professors in a Danesh Gaah (University) in India.” I answer
Even a few minutes earlier it had sounded impressive to me, but just now it ringed hollow – how hollow I gather from the next comment.

“You – pooor professors?”

Her sister is trying to restrain her, but dying to ask some questions herself.

“Can you sing?”

“Err….No” I answer.

“Not even little – do you know this song?” and then she reels off some gibberish which sounded like ‘la-la-la-la-le-la-la-la ….. guti, guti, guti”

It is sung with great gusto but has no tune – it does not sound like any song that I have heard before, and this somehow seems to irritate them.

“Come dance with us then – you Salman Khan …. Me your lover.”

While refusing to comply by weakly shaking my head to the negative, it strikes me for the first time that the Iranians were much more familiar with the male actors of Hindi cinema.

The two sisters have already started gyrating to an inaudible tune – arms spread, fingers clicking, breasts heaving and the waist and hip undulating in a wave pattern – I did not realise until then that a woman can look so suggestive in a completely covered outfit. I am sweating. All of a sudden the younger sister licks the forefinger of her right hand and beckons me.

“Come, come, come, come no ….. join me, come dance with me” she said in a husky whisper.

By this time I am totally flustered – this is so unexpected. I am a woman, a foreigner, and this behaviour is in total contradiction with whatever I had heard or read of the code of public behaviour for women in Iran. I was under the impression that you get publicly flogged for less, much less.

And then again suddenly the younger sister changes gears – she starts jumping up and down vigorously hand waving at somebody behind me. “Heyee … Heyee – Indians here, Salman Khan, Bombay, Janana ….” She is shouting at somebody. I turn around in time to see three young men hastily crossing the road to the other side. They are diligently avoiding any eye contact with my companions. This seems to quieten her a bit and she says complainingly to me:

“You not good Indian, no bangle, no earring, no nose ring, no ring at all in finger too. You not know Salman Khan, not in Bombay, no sing, no dance and no money ….you no good Indian”.

Any other time I would have philosophically sympathised with her sentiments and disappointments, but right now concern for self-preservation was not allowing me to respond to her; I can not even master a smile.

I try looking above these girls head at Rahul – a silent plea for rescue must have been there in my eyes, and just in this split second distraction I miss the younger sister flouncing down in front of me, her knees resting on mine, she starts pawing at the green pouch pocket I carried on my body attached to a string around my neck. All our papers are in it – and also our money. Before I realise she has unzipped it and is going through the contents. I am totally dumbfounded.

“You no have Indian money – we want yaadgari (memento), we love you, where you hide Indian money?”

“In India”, I said, I am not trying to be funny, but they laugh. And then she pries the ring on my left hand – a simple silver band Rahul had bought for me the previous day.

“You give me that, I will love you – that will be yaadgari from you, from India, from Salman Khan – Give me. GIVE ME, Give Me” she chants loudly. I start out by declining, but she is working herself up to such frenzy that I debate whether it would be better to give it and get it over with.

Her sister in a move possibly to calm her says, “Write something for us – write I love Masah, I love Sahila, I love Nazanin, Write I love you very much”. I am ready to do anything and have already started writing when the younger sister starts screaming again, “No English, write in Hindi, write in Salman Khan’s language”.

I write, I felt like a fool and yet I write and they made me read it out aloud “Main tumse pyaar karti hoon………” I sound ridiculous to my own ears, but it seems to please my audience.

I am frantically thinking of how to extricate myself from this situation – I am at a loss – they seemed to have all the time in the world and are completely oblivious to the spectacle they were creating in a public place. I must have been distracted for a moment, because suddenly I find the younger sister screaming again – while hysterically tugging at my sleeves.

“You love Iran – yes you must love Iran, you are a liar tell me that you love me, India love Iran, Iran love India, Iran – India Dust (friend), I love you, you love me, I love Salman Khan ……” She is continuing in this incoherent fashion, while I stare at the display helplessly. It seems I have mistakenly said ‘no’ when she had asked, “You love Iran very much, no?”

Exactly at the point when I have given up all hopes for redemption, I hear Rahul saying firmly, “Mana, Come we have to go.” He and Kabeer are holding hands and have come up to stand right next to me like a protective wall. It works like magic. The three girls jump up hastily and bid me goodbye – just like that. I smile weakly at them but dare not say any parting words. I am not in the shape for any further interactions. They soon disappear under the arch of Pol-e-Khajo, and I realise that I am completely drenched with sweat. I am feeling numb, I am feeling exhausted, I do not have the energy for any conversation – I do not have the energy for anything. I feel as if I have been assaulted – I want to curl myself up in a foetal position, pull up the covers and shut the world out. I want to give myself up to sleep, to oblivion.

I never look back at the beautiful river. I do not register anything during the walk home – not the Chinar lined walk, not the Kababis, nor the twinking, sparkling children streaming out of a prep school or the handsome young man on skates who brushed past me – nothing. Rahul actually holds my hand to steer me, I need help to cross the road. Every once in a while I hear Kabeer asking solicitously, “Ma tum thik to ho? Tumhari tabiyet theek hai na?” (Ma are you okay? Are you feeling alright?)

I try to smile reassuringly – but I am very tired – there is packing to be done. But wait, why am I thinking such mundane thoughts, where am I going anyway? Where have I come from? Who were these girls? Who am I?......

As the incredible images of the last one hour comes sliding by – and I am no longer pushed to fend myself from the unexpected, I find myself thinking more about these girls – why were they behaving thus? I have not seen such brazenness in India – the complete abandon in their gestures belied any comprehension. Actually apparently not even the Iranians we spoke to later, could explain it to us. After listening with silent disbelief to a shortened version of the incident they would shake their heads and dismiss the episode with remarks like ‘they were bad girls – they do not come from good families’, ‘they must be prostitutes’ and more ominously ‘now you know why we need moral police – to control the younger generation’.

But what was it, anyway? Was it their form of protest against the imposed restrictions of the Mullah regime on women – singing for women in pubic is a legal offence, with quite harsh punishments. And they were actually pirouetting on a vamp number. Was it their personal ‘jihad’ against the constraints of Iranian society, the palpable oppression of women in particular? Were they brave or just on an artificial high aided by a whiff of opium and the promise of Salman Khan’s brawn to come to their rescue – like in the Bollywood films? I suddenly felt very sad at this pathetic attempt to delude oneself of the harsh reality – this deliberate invoking of an impossible dream sequence from a bawdy film of a faraway land. I could comprehend their disappointment in me – not beautiful, not rich, nor related to Salman Khan either, just a plain middle-aged woman, not even one living in their dream city Bombay. Time and again they tried to discern some trace of my illustrious linkages, to the imaginary picture of opulence and beauty, of singing and, of laughter and eternal love, that they had conjured up for this land of their dreams. I must have failed miserably to measure up. All of a sudden in spite of my battered body and senses, I am sad for these dancing girls. I hope I did not break their beautiful illusion forever – they needed something to dedicate their beautiful youth to – some dream worth waiting till eternity.

Every sensation was becoming hazy again. I have to focus myself on which foot to put forward and where. First of all I needed to reach the hotel. I feel Rahul’s reassuring arm around me and continue plodding. It is only 11.30 in the morning.