Maryam, my cabin companion, reads from Mahi-e-Siyah-e-Kuchulu (‘The Little Black Fish’ by Samad Bihrangi). The fish (MSK) runs into deadly encounters with mean crabs and greedy sharks in the ocean, but manages to outwit them all. But alas, MSK ends up in the beak of a hungry heron. Seekers may seek but then there’s fate. The quest for self-realisation continues unchecked. MSK is soon replaced by another little fish, this one is red, and he alone out of 11,999 fish in the stream, is curious and courageous enough to set out to tackle the baddies of the ocean. Mahi-e-Siyah-e-Kuchulu is a Farsi children’s literature classic. Maryam reads it on her phone, and when she sees me struggling with my questionable Farsi, translates portions of it in broken English. Somehow I begin to think of myself as a restless fish. Or what am I doing sitting on a train in Iran?
We are four women on an overnight train from the shimmering desert town of Yazd in central Iran to its bustling religious centre, Mashad, in the northeast. Mashad is the most popular pilgrimage site for Shia Muslims, with the shrine of the eighth imam, Imam Reza. We are going to Mashad to visit the shrine for reasons varying from touristic curiosity to longing for mystical union. Maryam says whenever she faces an unanswerable question she talks to Imam Reza and he always helps. The other two women agree. I don’t say anything because I have no experience of telepathic Q&A with dead saints.
Women, unless they are travelling with families, are segregated on Iranian trains in lockable four-berth cabins, which surpass the first-class coupé of Indian trains in cleanliness, comfort and affordability. My ticket from Yazd to Mashad cost about $30. On an overnight journey, gender segregation strikes me as a good idea. Travelling alone I felt very safe in Iran. And I was so relaxed knowing that no man other than an attendant could knock on the all-female cabin door.
When Maryam finishes reading
One of our cabin mates is an elderly, proud mother of four sons. The other is a married accountant in her thirties with no kids. The youngest, Maryam (22), is a kindergarten teacher. Very proud of her rich cultural heritage, she recites the poetry of Hafez and Rumi for me, and is a dedicated fan of Saeen Baba (Shirdi Sai Baba) and Bollywood. Her all-time favourite is Baghban , a film she has watched 27 times. She’s the only one among the three who speaks English. The other two women speak to me via Maryam. They immediately want to know my religion and marital status. The two older women keep the mandatory headscarves and coats on, but Maryam removes both. However, each time an attendant knocks, she hastily reaches for her scarf and coat. “I don’t like it,” she says resignedly, “but you can’t change everything.”
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Urban Iranians are cosmopolitan, abreast of the fast-changing world, yet they seem to find ambiguity and in-betweenness unsettling.You’re this or that. You can’t be both. Even strangers like taxi drivers or the man I passed in a park in Isfahan in my search for the famous bridge with 33 arches over a now dry river, asked me the two essential questions: Are you Muslim? Are you married? If your answer to the first is ‘yes’, then you’re asked: Are you Shia or Sunni? The aspiring ethnographer in me tried out four options:
1. I’m Shia.
2. I’m Sunni.
3. I’m both.
4. I’m neither.
I was treated most cordially if I chose number 1. The worst in terms of subsequent friendliness was option 3. I refrained from using it after I was stared down. You can’t be this and that. You can’t belong to two enemy camps and claim loyalty to both. Only hypocrites or the insane would do that. The full force of that realisation dawned on me in Iran. One woman thought when I said ‘both’ I meant I was of mixed parentage.
How can you be both? That’s your parents. But what are you?
So another time I tried option 4: I’m neither, meaning to say I’m a Muslim without a sect. This is also closest to the truth. But this didn’t go down well either. I was born in a Muslim family. Shia or Sunni didn’t matter. Stringently fixed identities were not so important back when I was growing up. Most Iranians — more than 90 per cent — are Shia Muslims. The minority Sunnis mostly belong to non-prosperous ethnic groups such as Kurds and Baluch, residing in the least-developed areas of the country. And relationships between the two are not the most congenial domestically or internationally.
Eid-e-Ghadeer is a national holiday in Iran. It’s the day Shia Muslims believe the prophet Mohammed, during a sermon in AD 632 shortly before his death, appointed his son-in-law Ali to be his successor. Ali didn’t become the first Caliph, however, and this alleged betrayal is the historic bone of contention between Shias and Sunnis. I was wandering around the crowded Naqsh-e-Jahan square in Isfahan on Eid-e-Ghadeer, admiring the mosque architecture, when a young woman stopped me. She handed me a rose and a booklet in English and wished me Eid-e-Ghadeer mubarak. I bought a frozen melon smoothie and sat down to read the booklet. The last section of this letter, supposedly written by Ali to his sons on return from the battle of Siffin, shocked me. “Do not consult women because their view is weak and their determination unstable. Cover their eyes by keeping them under the veil because strictness of veiling keeps them in their place. If you can manage that they should not know anyone other than you, do so.” I wondered if the young woman who handed it out had read it herself. Or was it just a job for her?
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Now as to the marriage question, if my answer was ‘no’, it was followed with: “ Azdawaj nakuneed ? Chera? (You’re not married? Why?)” Even the young management student working part-time at the hotel I stayed at in Yazd, was flummoxed: “ Shoma tanha ? Chera ? (You’re alone/single? Why?)” If you’re not married, how do you keep yourself occupied, the accountant asked as she prepared a plate of food to carry to her husband sitting in the gentlemen’s cabin. She didn’t have children and being married was the only antidote to loneliness, it seemed.
I read, I travel, I write, I have friends, I answered. She seemed unconvinced that was enough to keep a woman occupied.
Maryam had a slightly different take. She said many Iranian women were delaying marriage till their early thirties. And this was corroborated by a 2016 Los Angeles Times article that reported three million educated Iranian women over 30 were unmarried because the men they meet are poor husband material. So was the Eid-e-Ghadeer booklet an attempt to reverse men’s emasculation, their failing power and control over women? Maryam said she was happy to be single for now but would want to marry eventually. Her relatives kept pointing out prospective grooms: “Marry that one. He’s rich. Has a good job.” She wanted to marry rich so she could afford international travel. An old friend had recently offered to become her boyfriend. But he didn’t have promising career prospects. Like a woman stuck between twin reefs of modernity and tradition, she asked if she should go for a risky romance and put aside more pragmatic concerns like financial stability?
What can I say, I replied.
Delaying marriage may be a cosmopolitan, educated, empowered woman’s option. But close to my hotel in Yazd’s charming old town, wandering in the winding alleys on a hot Wednesday evening, I was drawn to the blue-tiled domed tomb of a 14th-century scholar, Syed Rokn al Din. I saw only women seated in the courtyard, their heads covered. All were praying. I saw no men. Some women looked at me questioningly. I sat down with them for a few minutes. Then, somehow feeling out of place, I left. Later, I asked at my hotel why only women were gathered at Syed Rokn al Din. I was told on Wednesday nights unmarried women went there to pray for good husbands. But the person who told me this was a single mother of three running the hotel.
Iran appeared an intriguing mix of oppression and liberation. Women are safe out alone at all times of the day and night. The owner of my bed-and-breakfast in Mashad had his son and his girlfriend living together in his house. You see women taxi drivers. There’s an easy familiarity between men and women, and women seem very confident talking to men. Their head-covering seems to be slipping lower and lower. All in all, there’s much happening to give the clerics sleepless nights.
Nighat Gandhi is the author of Ghalib at Dusk and Other Stories