A day in Tehran- Anything sacred,

Today is Friday, a sacred holiday in Muslim world. Although I am not really sure how a Muslim community is reorganized to be one?! And I am a good example to portray this controversy; for I neither did nor see anything sacred today.

In the morning I brought my daughter to her Guitar class. She had a group practice preparing for a concert. I waited for her in the car near her school. The gas price is high and rationed so, I decided to wait there, and for filling my time brought with me Somerset Maugham’s “Of human bondage,” after almost a year that I had kept in the shelf.

It was not easy to find a good parking place, but after all I found one. While sank in the book the car in front of me trying to get out of park bumped me. So hurriedly, I distanced from him and complained,”why didn’t you tell me? Had you to strike me getting my attention?” He left without a word. An hour later a very chic and nose operated (you should see “Nose, Iranian style” by Oskuee) came close and asked without preliminary custom words, “How long are you waiting here?” I answered, “2.5 hours, why?” He said a car has bumped his car and a witness had left its number on his car. I now understood why the driver who had bumped me earlier did not pay attention to my complaining voice. I think he has also bumped his front car which was an expensive one and the strike had caused damage to the car so he seemingly preferred to run away instead of arguing with me.

My daughter came and on our way home in Shahrak Gharb (Now called Shahrak Qods) we saw several units of young police forces in groups of 20. I did not notice why they were there and told my daughter, ”This is the job generating course of action promised by Ahmadinejad’s government, to hire people to control other people!” Some cars were parked aside streets heading toward the walkway leaving a narrow space pass. Two or three cars bumped each other and seemed to be waiting for police. I told my daughter the situation brings an Armageddon genre movie in mind.

The weather was lovely. Sun shined as beautiful as possible, rarely Tehran is this clean. I thought this would be a loss not walking in this weather. I went out to have walk. Two young boys around 14 on two small motorbikes were approaching. Their outfits and old weary motors gave the impression they were not very privileged. They honked constantly looking as if to be so joyful. When they got closer one of them (looking like “Bashu” by Beizai) with a very warm smile looked at me and while putting his hand on his head yelled “Kachal” meaning, Bald. I am very sure he was right and I am a hairless middle aged man. But the problem is, what kind of teaching made him choosing this one among all beauties he could enjoy the day?