The layer of beauty

“Iran has a thin skin of beauty but underneath is disaster.”

To write about Iran is a paradox. There are two sides to this story — the grim and the beautiful. It is true, it is a place of great beauty with a history that expands your sense of time. You can wander the passageways of 1000 year old bazaars, and walk the streets of some of the oldest cities in the world. The history of human experience and conflict is written into every cave and landscape of this land. It is impossible not to stumble across ruined cities, palaces and castles that were sacked by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan or any of the other conquering forces. The fight for control of resources and power over these lands and people may have changed face in the course of history, however it is still alive and well today.

It would be unwise to write publicly about the grim side of this story, so instead I will tell you about the beautiful as this is what keeps hope alive for people living in Iran.

“In Iran, the people are always living with hope, just hope.”

Hope comes in the form of great beauty; this is a culture that lives the poetry and the music that is just as old as the histories of these conflicts. Despite the many restrictions, music still fills peoples lives. Any opportunity, people break into song. For men, this is often in public in the parks and under bridges; for women, this is often in secret behind closed doors for it is illegal for women to sing solo in the company of men.

It was not unusual to stumble across this scene: two young men, probably in their 20s, one is a potter and the other a postman, standing under a bridge on either side of an archway passing stanza’s to one another. They are singing a poem about the pain of separation of the lover from his love due to the cultural restrictions placed upon them forbidding them to meet. An older man steps into the archway and the two men stand aside. He is their teacher and he walks up and down a wooden walkway as he sings a poem of Hafez, a highly revered Persian poet from the 14th century, about drinking wine to be freed from sadness. One of the younger men joins him and they sing together, their voices full of passion and sorrow. People are gathered all around them often completely lost in thought or joining in clapping and singing along.

These scenes completely absorbed me. It would be a rare site in my culture for a group of relative strangers to gather and sing poetry, people stilled in respect for the art and clapping to honour the singer when he really lost himself in a beautiful phrase. This act created a brief space in time where people could exist outside their own world and just encompass themselves in the sound and the poetry. For me, it was a rare time where I was so wrapped up in beauty that I forgot about everything outside of this moment. I felt like I could have stayed under those archways forever.

In the parks we stumbled across morning singing rituals. Old men would arrive one by one at a particular spot, perhaps a square in the centre of the park and take to a park bench. Animated and emanating joy, one of them would start singing, losing himself in the poetry of Sa’adi or Hafez. These two great Persian poets that speak of love and freedom are everywhere in Iran — in the songs, in conversations and on the walls of peoples houses. The other men clap and dance, calling out words of encouragement. Then all of a sudden they would all stop, one particularly playful man would ring the bell on each person’s bicycle and then they would leave again one by one.

This was the Iran that people pleaded with us to remember. This incredible richness of culture, layers of heritage that is still lived everyday through song, music and poetry. After one meeting with people singing under a bridge one of them grabbed my notebook and scribbled us a note…

“When you return to your country remember only the Iranian culture not the Political situation please.”

Story and photographs by Hannah Mackintosh. If you enjoyed this, you can find more here: https://medium.com/for-all-i-see