Tehran Diary

What’s going on? ‘‘Anything can happen,’’ avers Amin Sabooni, the outspoken editor of the English newspaper Iran Daily. Voter ennui would work in favour of front-runner and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, but nobody is writing off reformist candidate Mostafa Moin, whose popularity has been climbing in the past few days. Iranians are known to be last-minute voters, and could well swing a surprise. If it goes to a second round face-off between Rafsanjani and Moin, anything could indeed happen.

Winds Of Change

Anyone who has read Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels on life in Iran—Persepolis, I and II—cannot but keenly observe the role of women since the revolution in 1979. Sure, the headscarf and cloak are still the uniform for all women, but there are not-so-subtle changes. The scarves now show a fair bit of hair, and the cloak is now at a fashionable knee-length, displaying designer jeans and sometimes even a flash of leg. Women drivers negotiate the tough roads of Tehran—where taking curves at 140 kmph is the norm—with aplomb. Young couples (60 per cent of Iran’s population is below the age of 20) hold hands on the street and the cosmetics industry is booming. The women journalists I spoke to knew English better than their male counterparts. Intelligent and assertive, many say women hold the key to Iran’s economic future. At least some appear to be showing the way.

Sanction talk

Apart from the pollution levels, an air of US sanctions hangs heavy on Iran’s economy. The large lobby of North Tehran’s The Parsian Esteghlal hotel—which has a Soviet-era air of neglect and watchfulness to it—is buzzing with businessmen (and women) talking shop. Most are from European countries, though one did spy a smattering of Indian professionals—English-speaking lawyers are in demand. Jean Christophe Fassel from German firm Thyssen Krupp, in Tehran to negotiate an outsourcing deal for auto components, shrugs when asked about the possibility of EU joining the sanctions. ‘‘If that were so, I wouldn’t be here. For us, it’s business as usual.’’ Most Iranians don’t expect the situation to intensify in an economy that needs to broadbase out of oil and gas and automobiles. After years of war and sanctions, Iran desperately wants to get back on track. The question is, will it be able to?

Mr Penn, I Presume

That’s my opening line to Hollywood actor Sean Penn, who I bump into while carpet shopping in Tehran’s sprawling Bazaar Buzurgh. Penn—who has acted in modern classics like Dead Man Walking and Mystic River—is in Iran as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, perhaps the first Hollywood star to visit since 1979. ‘‘Are you staying for the elections,’’ he asks me as the carpets were being rolled open around us. When I tell him I am accompanying India’s Petroleum Minister who is signing a mega deal for liquified natural gas, he nods and says that he has read about ‘‘the LNG stuff’’. ‘‘Isn’t it dangerous for an American to be in Tehran,’’ I ask him. Penn’s reply: ‘‘It’s dangerous if you don’t get home. If you do, then it’s not.’’ Penn will definitely get home as his invite has the sanction of the Iranian government. A cigarette later, he was gone. No carpets were bought.

Metro Madness

Ask Hasan, my affable taxi driver, how long it’ll take to reach a destination, the answer typically is: ‘‘It depends.’’ An hour on the road can easily stretch to two, even more. So, one afternoon, a couple of us got on to Tehran’s two-year-old metro. It not only was cheap, we got to our destination in 20 minutes. And it was spanking clean.