Shuffling Through Tehran & Esfahan

I like to get away with things. Nothing serious - just little devilish acts. So when I loaded my iPod Shuffle for the trip to Iran I purposely selected songs that would set a stark contrast to the Islamic Republic street surroundings.

And what a rebel I am. It’s an eerie feeling to stand on a busy street corner in Tehran under the watchful eyes of the nearest Khomeini & Khameini billboard while grooving to DePeche Mode’s “My Own Personal Jesus”. When the next song shuffled to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf" however, my skin overloaded with nervous tingles. Stares coming at me, bodies brushing by me, but no one knew the devil that lurked between my ears as the background singers moaned full blast. It felt illegal.

And later in the trip I was told that it IS illegal, which accounts for why I was the only one walking around Tehran with cords from my ears. Still, after a few days of carefully wearing the mandated hejab over my head, it felt to me like a healthy rebellion - not to mention the fact that wearing a scarf on your head is the perfect concealer for a strategically placed iPod.

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That little iPod gave me another wonderful memory - in Esfahan.

Strolling the Si-o-Se Pol mid-day, I crossed paths with some young boys hanging out in the sun while playing around with a volleyball. When my Farsi ran out, I looked around for something to continue the conversation - my iPod shuffle. Setting the song to something by Lenny Kravitz, I passed it first to the oldest boy who winced at the sound of it and pressed every button to find something new - not the reaction I expected - especially since his shirt displayed "Eminem". So I reset the track to play a poetry recital of Omar Khayyam's "The Rubaiyat" and handed it back to him. Labkhand bozorgtarin bood (He had the biggest smile) then his eyes stared into space and his demeanor changed into a tranquil zone far away. This was cultural exchange at it best.



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THOUGHT: Taking an iPod for a walk through San Francisco downtown, I’m just blending with the crowd, but in Southern Tehran iPods are a cultural anomaly. Now suppose there were 10 or 20 others like me in Tehran, grooving down the street, braving crosswalks at the speed of U-2 or Madonna. I wonder how that would affect the street culture over the span of a couple months.