"Hope is Better than Money"

Behrouz Arshidi, 24, street-side seller of pirated films in the Great Bazaar of Tehran

“I have a bachelor’s in accounting, but without proof of having done your military service, it is simply impossible to get a job.

"There are a lot of people with college degrees doing work like mine. I know of people with graduate degrees driving taxis or selling stuff on the side of the street.

“A possibility came up at a bank once. I was willing to do anything, even just serve tea. But even that fell through because they asked for the military service card.

“So I’m going to sell these films for a few more months, go do my military service for two years, and then get a regular job.

“I make 500,000 to 600,000 tomans a month [$543 to $652 USD] selling these films. The DVD I just sold you for 1500 [$1.63 USD], 60% of that is profit.

“Working at a bank, at a job in proportion to my education, I’d make about 300,000 [$326] a month. But it would be steady work. Selling films on the side of the street has no future. At any moment the cops could show up and put me away because I don’t have a permit.

"You also have to find a store that's closed so you can stand in front of it. No one's going to let you stand in front of their store [if they are present]."

“Absolutely anything you want is available in Iran. Anything you have in the West, we have here. So why would anyone want to move away?

“Nowhere in the world is business as profitable as it is here in Iran. If you have the initial investment, there is no end to the possibilities.

“My father, a real-estate broker, bought a piece of land and sold it a month later for ten times what he paid for. Where in the world can you do that?

“There are difficulties here but we overcome them because the Iranian has hope; he never gives up.

“Westerners lose hope very quickly. They lose a couple of guys and they’re all over themselves. You saw how we fought the [Iran-Iraq] war, didn’t you? They’d send 200 bullets at us. We’d send 201 guys forward. Two hundred would die, the last one finishes off the enemy.

“We have hope; we always have hope. That’s what counts."

"I'll live here all my life"

Omeed Hosseini, 18, apprentice at father’s socks and underwear store, Maglesee Bazaar, Isfahan, Iran.

For a fee of 2,000 tomans (about $2.10 USD), the entrepreneuring Omeed provides a special tour from the top of the Maglesee Bazaar, free exercise included.

Past a couple of rough-hewn curtains in the back, up a pitch-dark hallway, on hands and knees on a bed frame serving as a ladder, plus a crawl over a couple more walls, and suddenly I was walking the roof of the bazaar, spying on shoppers from the skylight holes in the ceiling, and aw-oohing over the spectacular scenes of Isfahan’s ancient skyline.

The best part was still coming. Over a few more roofs and a tip-toe past a hair-raising ledge, I was looking down into a house right out of the 15th-century Iran, before renovation.

It reminded of the old New Orleans, a la Street Car Named Desire.

“It has a long history,” Omeed said. “My grandfather told me that Afghans, when they invaded Isfahan, they forced Iranians out of this house and took it over.

“Those big containers you see down there on the right, they used those in the old days to make halim. The other big jar you see on the left, Isfahanis used them to make wine.

“I rather live in a house like this—cleaned up, of course—than in a fancy Tehran high-rise. Life is real in a house like this. The sounds, the smells. I love the smell of kauh-gel after it rains and it’s wet.

Your lift is ready, sir; inside Maglesee Bazaar (located adjacent to the Jame Mosque); roof view at the back of the Mosque

“Here, in smaller towns, you eat a lot better. You can get country naan, roghaneh boomi, fresh yogurt. You can’t get things like that in Tehran, can you?

“I know [the stereotype is] that most Iranian kids watch satellite TV and they fall in love with everything foreign and then suddenly all they can think of is moving to the West.

“I don’t. I’ll be taking over my father’s shop someday and living here all my life. I think life is much more real over here.”

"I'll Never Forget My Mother"

Sharaum Yousefian, 40, driving instructor, Tehran, Iran.

“I tasted being well-off before the [1979] revolution.

“My father, a lawyer by training, was a colonel in the military and made good money. My mother opened a hair salon and made several times what my father did because she went for training to France and Italy. There was always a Mercedes and a BMW in front of the house.

“Then my father and mother divorced and things fell apart. All my siblings [who were younger than me] moved away with my father. My mother rolled over her car and became paralyzed from chest down; I was the only one who remained with her during the two years before her death.

“All we had was spent on her medical bills. Then the government would not let me stay with her. They said when she had her accident I was already 18, so they sent me to fight [in the Iran-Iraq War].

“You don’t know the hell I went through during that period. I was injured three times. I saw a friend eating next to me get shot in the head. When he fell, there was food pouring out of his mouth.

“Once we took my mother home, I was expecting her to be dead every single day that I came home. She had a button next to her bed with which she could open the door. I had my own keys, but I rang and waited for her to open the door because I couldn’t stand the idea of finding her dead.

“I would sweat profusely and feel so cold when I rang the door and waited. Then she’d open the door and all the tension would seep away.

“When she was gone, they told me she had to be buried quickly. I was 19 and the only family member at her burial. Everyone else was out of town and on their way to Tehran.

"The women at the cemetery washed her, wrapped her in white cloth, and asked for a family member to hold her head to place her into the grave. I was the only mahram person around so I had to do it. I literally held my mother's head and helped place her in the ground. And it was first time I had ever seen an open grave.

"I didn’t want to bury her. For a long time people were criticizing me for not getting her a head stone; that would have made it feel too final. I kept wishing I could keep her at home.

“I couldn’t cry. The only thing that came up was something like hick-ups. Then came the ceremony for her third [day after death] at the mosque. When I heard the mullah announce her name, suddenly I broke like a dam. But I also started bleeding through the nose. They took me to two doctors before they managed to stop the bleeding. I was crying the whole time. The doctors said it was from the pent-up stress. They said what saved my life was being able to finally cry.

“I already had decided to kill myself. On her seventh, after all the ceremonies were over, I took a pack of shaving blades and went to her grave around midnight. I kissed her grave and told her I was about to join her.

“Just as I was about to cut my wrist, I felt someone grabbing my shoulders. It was my friend, Bahraum. 'You can do as you wish. I won’t stop you,' he said. 'Just give me five minutes to talk to you.'

“He asked what was the sin of my siblings to also lose a brother. Then he gave me a letter from a woman I had loved but her family would not let her marry me. She had mailed the letter to him to be sure that I got it.

“I went to live with my father in Isfahan but soon it became clear I wasn’t welcome. I’d go to take a shower and his [new] wife would turn off the hot water and announce, ‘it’s broken’.”

“When I left my dad’s, a beat-up car was all I had in the entire world and I lived in it for a year.

“Then I went to Kermanshah—I told you I have a Kurdish strain in me. The Kurds revere the dead. If the dead person was young and had a child, they really love that child.

“It was there that I met my wife. She was my mother’s cousin. I was only 23 and way too young to get married. But I saw this young, innocent thing and I knew I wanted her as my companion.

“We’ve gone through a lot since then; very difficult times. But we survived.

“I truly love my wife. In the mornings she wakes up my son at 6 and get him out the door by 6:20. Then she wakes me up and brings breakfast to bed. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

“She makes between 400,000 to—on a very good month—600,000 tomans [$434 to $652 USD] a month at the beauty salon she works at. With my 200,000 [$217 USD] a month it’s enough for us to make ends meet.

“We even have a little saved into which we dip every time there’s a guest.

“It should be hard for me to be living in someone else’s property and pay rent—after all the wealth I tasted when I was a kid.

“But then I’ve already tasted having a lot of things. I can live with not having that anymore.

“I can never forget my mother. I still talk to her when I feel lonely.

“A few years ago I was in a driving accident and the right side of my body was paralyzed. I was bedridden.

“Then one night she came to my dream. She put my head on her knees, carassed my neck and shoulders, and her hands through my hair. ‘Why is my son in pain?’ she asked. 'You can walk, I know you can walk. Come on, just try to walk.'

“When I woke up, I tried moving. Then I sat up and finally I started walking. I screamed for my wife, “I can walk! I can walk!”

"I'm Happy Regardless"

Mohammed Kalati, 58, Tehran taxi driver for 20 years.

“I was into agriculture and freighting fruit when I came to Tehran 35 years ago from Khorasan. One year I lost a lot of money so I got myself a taxi.

“It’s survival but I have no complaints. I’ve been to Mecca twice with my wife; I’ve been to Karbala and I’ve been to Syria [all on pilgrimages].

"From Karbala I came back with a stack of cash, thinking I was about to go back and spend it with my wife. But [the U.S. invasion of Iraq] started and now I assume all that cash is worthless because it has Saddam's picture on it. I'll keep it; maybe someday it'll have some other kind of value.

“I have bought a car for my son and his wife, gave him his own apartment, gave him cash to get started, and even on some months, his mother doesn’t let them pay for water and electricity. That makes me feel fulfilled.

“All my four daughters are married off. All are productive, school teachers, so on.

“I can’t get insurance because they say I’m too old now. That bothers me but I refuse to worry about it too much. I am thankful. I thank God everyday.

“I worked hard for what I have and after 40 years one should have a little bit of something to live on. But I know others who started out with me and they are still renting and living hand to mouth, because they were into partying. I was careful; I saved my money and invested wisely.

“Everything that happens is God’s will, so why worry? Those who worry, those who complain, they surprise me. They are not logical.

“Yes, people are under a lot of pressure. There’s a lot to complain about. My sister’s son has to pay 10 million tomans [$10,869 USD] just for the right to move into a rented apartment. Can you believe it?

“When I was young, you could do your traveling, your marrying, your raising of children and still have something left over. Not today.

“But tell me, what is the use of complaining? What is that going to accomplish?

“They say, ‘the one who giveth teeth’—meaning God—‘also giveth bread’. God provides. There is no reason to lust for more.

“May you live to be 100 years old and every one of those years is productive. May you find happiness every moment of your life. Know that my prayers are with you.

"Iran is Safe"

BM, cashier at a kabobi, Tehran

“My people are all from Baku [Azerbaijan], although I was born on the Iran side of the border. In this place, we’re all Turks; Turks from Tabriz, Azerbaijan, Ardebil. We all understand each other.

“There was a time that the border between Iran and Azerbaijan was open and I went to see Baku. It was clean, nice.

“But I rather live here in Iran. Yes, it is nicer there and more freedoms. But you could be walking down the street and somebody shoots you just because you made a joke. Everyone is carrying a gun. It’s not safe.

“Here in Iran, there’s safety. You walk down the street no one does anything to you.

“The only problem here is the difficulty in making money. If you have money, you can live very well.

“If I had the money I’d live out in the country. Tehran’s air eventually kills your body. It’s terrible. But living out in the country, you can live pretty well on not that much money.”

Q: Does your restaurant serve good food?

“Not really.”

"My Greatest Loss"

Ahmad Mirza-Khani, 29, taxi driver, Isfahan, Iran.

“I’m from the countryside, a village near Daroon, the western-most point of the province of Isfahan. We’re way up in the mountains; you can get 1.5 meters of snow up there.

“I used to be in farming. But like so many others one year the crops failed and I just gave up. I came to the city [Isfahan] and bought this car to haul passengers.

“The problem with this kind of living, though, is that I keep meeting women who end up taking instead of paying. Instead of taking them to their destination, I end up spending half the day at restaurants buying them ice-cream.

“It doesn’t go further, though. I just don’t want it to go further. And in any case, something mysterious always happens that blocks the way. It’s really strange.

“The greatest loss of my life is losing my wife [to divorce]. For five years we lived like two love birds. I don’t think we fought for so much as 10 minutes in that entire time.

“But her mother started interfering when I had heart surgery and we had to move back to the village to make ends meet. Her mother felt her daughter should live in the city. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you had heart trouble?’ she kept asking. I even took her to my doctor to tell her I didn’t have heart trouble before we got married.

“But the last time my wife went to visit her parents, her mother didn’t let her come back. It was painful.

“I would go to get her back, but too many things have been said and done. Under the spell of her family, she called me names, even smacked my face in front of the judge. She lost in court because she got caught in her own lies and now she is sending indirect messages that she wants me back.

“But I figure if she fell under the spell once, it could happen again. I want peace in my life, not fighting with her family.

“In Iran, you don’t just marry a woman; you marry her family too. In a way, I was married to her mother too. Ironically, immediately after she took back her jaheezeh, her father, who was against the divorce, had a heart attack and died. It should’ve been the mother.

“Iranians hold grudges. Once it’s past a certain point, they won’t be civil. They become revengeful. They won’t forgive and forget.

“I did some stupid things too. I found out her sister-in-law was constantly on the phone with others once her husband left the house. I confronted her and told her not to do it again. But then she went and told the opposite to her husband and my wife’s family. Now I was known as the cheater. Anonymous people kept calling my wife and bothering us. My wife believed them not me.

“My wife was only 14 when I married her. I was 23. She knew absolutely nothing. I had to teach her everything. I had read a lot all my life and knew a few things about psychology. I taught her how to deal with people, how to act in company of others, even how to sew and cook. I knew all that already from living on my own.

“Just when she was well-taught and ready for life, I lost her.

“And over what? Because her mom wanted the city for her daughter. But now her daughter is in the village without a husband and I’m back in the city all alone. Talk about irony.

“Being single has its charms. In America, I’m sure you have a lot of fun. But no matter how much fun you have, someday you realize that all along you lacked something precious—being part of a family. We’re better off being with others. It’s in our nature.

“Instead of thinking of the externalities when choosing a wife, try to find a friend, a companion, someone who’s there when you come home tired and upset, and she sits next to you and asks, ‘Ali Agha, tell me about you day. What is it that’s bothering you?’”

"Nothing like Lust for Power"

Akbar Moradi, 38, selling pantyhose in front of the Carat store, on the exclusive Africa Ave., north Tehran. The woman in the back? She wouldn’t give me the time of the day.

“I live in Akbar-Abad, way on the southside. It takes me two hours to get up here. I leave home at 7 and ride two buses to get here. I get home around 8.”

“I make about 4,000 to 5,000 tomans [$4.34 to $5.34 USD] a day. I survive. I got two school-age children at home.”

“I went to school until the 8th grade. I was working at a tomato-paste factory until the drout put them out of business eight years ago. That was the last time I had real employment.

“Getting a job? It’s impossible. If you don’t have a college degree, it’s a non-starter.

“Let me tell you this: there is nothing like the lust for power. Lust for a woman, well, that can be satisfied. But lust for power—there is no end to it. It cannot be satisfied. People will say anything; do anything to keep their power."

"You Can't Stop the Spread of Knowledge"

Alireza Najafi, 40, playing his self-made nay-anbaan on the Si-o-se pol bridge, Isfahan, Iran.

“The nay comes from Iranians. The bag part we got from the Portuguese when they came to Iran.”

“Growing up in Abadan, I heard it played at weddings and ceremonies. It was a local instrument; you couldn’t buy it in the stores. People who played it, made it themselves. Nobody outside Khuzestan knew about it.

“The sound stayed in my head. Back then, when half the country was illiterate, people didn’t value knowledge of music for their children. If a family allowed it, it was because they wanted to hear it at home just for themselves.

“But to play for other people and do it for a living? That was shameful. It was unthinkable. You had to find a hole somewhere to play the flute for yourself.

“When I was at the front during the [Iran-Iraq] war, sometimes I was desperate to find just a tiny reed somewhere to make myself a flute, but even that was impossible sometimes.

“The war dispersed Khuzestanis all over the country and so nay-anbaan is now known. You can even buy it.

“I had to make my own, though. An artist always has to make his own to get the sound right.

“I don’t know any notes, so I could never call myself an ostaad. I just go by the ear.

“Things got complicated with my job [as a welder] seven or eight years ago and I’ve been playing in the streets ever since. Music takes you to another place. It’s about the heart not the mind. The heart holds all the secrets.

“Here’s how it works: when I play the flute alone, there are tiny moments of silence, correct? It’s because I’m out of breath. You can’t do anything about that.

“But with a bag full of air, the spaces are gone. It’s like your car is running and you keep driving —the sound never stops—and so you go places you can’t otherwise go.

You can’t stop the spread of knowledge. Someday this planet will be one because of knowledge.

“Early after the revolution, music was banned. You had to find secret places to play. Persian classical music took a dive. Only people like Shajarian kept it alive but only from outside the country.

“Then slowly things changed and little by little music came back. First they allowed it 40-percent of the time and then 60-percent and then 80-percent. Now they hold music festivals and invite people from all over the world.

“Like some Africans who came here with their bongos and we had a blast together. It was a sight to see. We couldn’t speak a word to each other but we understood each other.

“You can’t stop the spread of knowledge. Someday this planet will be one because of knowledge.

“There are many many unknown musicians in the countryside that are as good as any, some with mind-bending abilities, things you would not think were possible. No one outside their region knows them, though, and when they die, their ability goes with them.

“From the books I’ve read, I admire Americans’ ability to summarize knowledge. Us Iranians have a lot of knowledge; everything there is to know is contained in our culture and religion. But it’s expressed with many turns. It’s not easy to get.

“The Americans have this ability to express the very essence of knowledge concisely, especially when it comes to what makes people tick. I admire that.

“I also admire the fact that they can freely write it down without any repercussions. Not only that, they receive praise from their fellow countrymen for their words.

“Democracy, if I understand it correctly, is humane rule by the humane. The kind of inspiration comes only from God.

“I’m a homeless, illiterate man and then someone with your class comes from America and pays attention to me. That’s an honor for me.

“I wish you only the best. Remember this wherever you go: some things cannot be expressed by words. You have to understand it through the heart. And then sometimes one sprouts wings and flies.

“Also this: whatever you think, what you put out, the society reflects back to you. It’s not what’s out there that matters; it’s what inside you.”

Q: Where are you going to sleep tonight?

“You ask too many questions!”

The Persian Carpet

Mohammed Reza Rasoulian, carpet arts student, Islamic Azad University of Sabzevar

“My family has been in the rug business for 40 years. My father would not let any of his sons pursue anything other than rug business.

“I am the first in my family who has gone to college to learn about rugs. Things have changed. We have to bring science into the business.

“Before the [1979] revolution, Iran’s rug business was number one in the world [in terms of total sales]. Today, it is 17th or 18th .

“One reason is the culture of Iranians. As soon as they find a market for their product, instead of improving the product to stay ahead of competition, they cut corners to increase their profits.

“Iranians began exporting garbage so about eight or nine years ago the government passed a law requiring the bad carpets to be separated from the good ones before they leave the country. But that law was never enforced.

“Also different areas of the country began copying popular designs to benefit from their reputation but in the process ruined their reputation too.

“There are Persian carpets so poorly made that when you rub your hands on them, they feel like synthetic rugs.

“Today people don’t weave carpets unless they are truly desperate. We have a strange situation now. Both the supply and the wages for carpet weavers are low. And it is hard on the businessman because our money is tied up in the market for six months before we see it again.