Good day and I hope you are having a great day. I was
traveling in the Middles East recently visiting my father who was very sick.
Despite the reason for my visit, I found an interesting positive perspective
and of all the places it came from my use of the Iranian Public Transportation
System.
At first glance this could have been a really bad situation,
especially for someone from California who is used to having his own car. I was
however, in a specially grateful mental state. Perhaps it was because I had no
phone, no computer, no internet to distract me. Just utter peace and quiet from
the technology that inundates my life on a daily bases. Truth be told, I would not have lasted 30
seconds driving in Tehran. It is one of
the most amazing things I have witnessed. I have driven in Paris, Frankfurt,
Boston and Los Angeles, but nothing compares.
The only way I can explain it is “organized Chaos”. It was like an elaborate choreographed car
chase dreamed up in Hollywood. Cars, Buses, mopeds, and pedestrians, flow
effortlessly at the same time in 6 lanes of traffic, at times missing each
other by mere inches. Yet there is very little accidents. Traffic signals and
rules of the road have no meaning.
Perhaps they do but I could not make any sense of it. I was amazed that
on any U.S. Highway there are numerous amount of accidents daily, even hourly
causing a backlog of traffic issues, but here nothing.
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I had an occasion to use a Taxi, and it was like a
ride-a-long with an experienced race car driver in a crowded obstacle
course. I was so amazingly grateful that
among all this chaos everyone gets where they are going without getting hurt. Mainly
me. That thought led me to be thankful for the amazing convenience of my own
vehicle back home. For the rules and regulations that keep things orderly. It
was really eye-opening. Then came the
bus rides I took. Like any other part of the world the public transportation is
crowded. What I was not prepared for however, was the immense amount of courtesy
displayed by people who in my previous experience in other parts of the world,
should have been frustrated.
I have ridden the buses, and metros in London, Chicago, Paris,
and even New York. In most cases, the
drivers, and passengers rarely talked or looked at you. There is a sort of
perpetual lack of expression and even frown on people’s faces from my
experience. Here in Tehran things were
different. I am not saying everyone was in a Pollyanna jubilees mood, but they
were very polite. Imagine the
conversation between the driver and the passenger. First of all you do not pay
until you reach your destination. With the crowds in the theses buses, it is a
sort of an honor system which could very easily be taken advantage of. So the passenger comes to pay, the Driver
sais “ghabelli nadareh” (it’s nothing, you honor me), to which the passenger
will reply “lotf dareen” (you are too kind, please take this). To many who are
not familiar with the Middle Eastern act of “Tarroff” (Flattery) this may seem
strange. I found it very humorous and it put me in an instant mood of gratitude
even though my 11 km trip took 2 hours.
It was one of the most cathartic experiences I have had, and it all
started because I was grateful for one small thing.
It occurred to me that since the act of Tarroff is so ingrained
in the culture, they do not concentrate on the accidents, and there is no 24
hour media coverage of car accidents or traffic issues to keep on attracting
these situations. Don’t get me wrong there is plenty of violence covered on
their news but at least the car crashes and wrecks are not part of their
regular “entertainment”. What you give
your attention to you will manifest. So if you have been ingrained to use
flattery with strangers, that at least is going to make your day a bit better
in a place where there is little to be happy about. It definitely made my day. See, you can always be grateful.
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