LOST IN TRANSLATION

Lost, lost, lost. Definitely lost in translation. No matter how one prepares oneself for the culture shock it comes down like 10,000 volts on the electric chair. Speaking farsi is the only way out, really, but I ain't got that ace up my sleeve. And it's not only a question of language, but of etiquette: the rules are different, the formalisms, and one has to be careful how one dresses, how one talks or gestures, where one enters and even how and where one looks. This is the Islamic Republic of Iran and, at least in the public sphere, to which the traveller is confined, it is islamic law that rules. It will take days to adjust to the presence/non-presence of women, who pass by in small numbers like dark shadows; it even takes time to adjust to a social life comprised of men, and only men. I've been walking around in a spell, with a dizzy feeling to my head, wondering why the hell I am here, but hey, I'm on the way to India, and the way to India passes through Iran, and I wanted to see, to experience, so here I am. Islamic Republic, what an idea. Another utopian experiment gone wrong. All religion is, strictly speaking, a form of collective delusion, and whern it is tranferred to all areas of social and political life it becomes a straightjacket for the brain, the soul, and the body. If we must have a state at all, please let it be a secular state, for the sake of all, believers and non-believers alike. Suddenly liberal democracy, with all its flaws, doesn't seem so terrible anymore.