Returning to Iran.

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(Page, 1)                                                                           Mohammed Emamy 18/11/02  

Returning to Iran

Returning to Iran after so many years, I was oblivious of what lay ahead other than a long plain journey.  I tried to reconcile myself by reminiscing from memories of my childhood, but all I could remember were vague recollections in place of memories.

Abruptly I awoke from my daydream with a stern methodical call of the tannoy to the departure lounge, and suddenly all my thoughts returned to the present.  Would I get past customs? Will they accept my passport? If not, what then?

I knew that the Iranian government was suspicious of outsiders. My apprehensions proved unfounded as I waited, jostling, trying not to lose my place in the bustling queue.  My baggage was checked although not as thoroughly as I expected from a country that bans alcohol, music, literature, videos and all things western, none of which I possessed, fortunately!

I staggered outside, somewhat stunned, into the bright sunlight of Iran. My mind was too occupied to pay attention to the many traders shouting, of weary children trying to attach themselves to my bags were all nothing but annoyances. Once I had managed to force my way into the first taxi I came across, I mistakenly thought that I had found sanctuary from the scrambling crowds, and took the opportunity to absorb the atmosphere.

The sky was a screaming blue but ahead of me the traffic around us moved in the same fashion as the people jostling at the airport, completely chaotically and without rules. Tehran “hot locality” in Farsi, is less a city then a sprawling slice of urban Iran with no centre, no focus, and is entirely endless. Tehran is a place of clambering crowds, bullying buses trying their damnedest to manoeuvre in the lodged traffic that moves so slowly it can not be called dangerous.

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(Page, 2)                                                                           Mohammed Emamy 18/11/02

Sitting in the taxi, I felt hot, bewildered and could feel my throat wheezing from the pollution which must be worst then any city I have been to.  I pleaded to the taxi driver in an imploring fashion to stop at a nearby park. I stumbled across a patch of grass ...

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