Photo by Kaveh Kazemi for The New York Times
Iranian Snapshot: Idle Townsmen, Hocus - Pocus
By DOUGLAS JEHL
The News York Times
December 5, 1998
HARIS, Iran -- Aziz the Magician pulled into town in his rattletrap
Russian truck and waited for the crowd to gather. It did not take long.
There are no theaters in this depressed town of 14,000 in northwest Iran,
no satellite dishes, not even a full-size soccer field. And so even before
Aziz hauled out his primitive loudspeaker and makeshift bag of tricks,
men and boys had hurried by the dozens to the muddy lot to see what Aziz
would do.
The worn sweaters and lined faces composed a scene that could have come
from any moment in the last 50 years. But it is present-day Iran, where,
far from the big cities, people are grateful for any entertainment they
can get.
"These are not tricks," Hafez Ali, a 45-year-old farmer, confided
to a visitor as Aziz produced a thimble to begin a sleight-of-hand act.
"They're all done scientifically."
Magicians, strongmen and showmen of their ilk have roamed the Iranian
countryside for centuries, as much a part of rural life as the weaving
of the handmade carpets for which Iran is famous. In larger towns, much
of their appeal has been crowded out by more modern diversions, or snuffed
out by Islamic authorities who frown on gatherings whose appeal has nothing
to do with religion.
In Tehran, the capital, movies, soccer matches and musical concerts
at government cultural centers have become popular public spectacles, while
affluent residents use illegal satellite dishes to watch programming more
racy than that available on Iranian television.
For the poor, mass prayer gatherings and government-sponsored political
demonstrations serve as a kind of free entertainment. The few showmen who
do still turn up on city streets tend to be shooed away by the police or
ignored by pedestrians who regard them as backward. But in places like
Haris, 60 miles from the nearest city, Tabriz, and surrounded by hardscrabble
farmland and barren peaks, the touring showmen are still a fixture, known
by name to just about everyone and awaited with anticipation.
"There is nothing else to do," Jalil Hadarani, a 27-year-old
grocer, said. "We don't have any fun."
Many men in Haris are unemployed, and others work only as day laborers,
victims of a collapse in the carpet industry and the broader troubles of
an economy unable to create enough jobs for a fast-growing population.
As if to reassure his audience, Aziz assured the crowd that he had performed
in the past before thousands of people in one of Teheran's main public
squares. But his gaunt appearance and the condition of his truck suggested
that he spent most of his life on the road, so much so that local people
said he came to Haris no more than twice a year, even though he hailed
from Gharadog, a village less than 30 miles away.
By no means was Aziz the only such visitor to Haris, the local people
said. There was Rashid, another magician, whose mention prompted a brief
and inconclusive argument about which of the two was more talented. Another
favorite was Ali Pahlavan, or Ali the Muscleman, who could tear thick chains,
catch heavy weights on his chest and bear without complaint the burden
of a truck driven slowly over him.
But the young boys in particular expressed a preference for Aziz, who
drew laughs by making a thimble materialize from someone's crotch, and
who had a knack for choosing the most gullible among them to be his assistant.
"Aji maji!" Aziz was proclaiming on this bitterly cold morning,
just as nonsensically as if he were saying "Abracadabra!"
The thimble vanished into a handkerchief, reappeared as if from a young
boy's ear, and Aziz began another incantation: "Spit of the mouth,
oil of the cotton and the salt of the just people ..."
The men and boys stamped their feet, blew on their hands and looked
on intently, as if to detect a bit of Aziz's trickery.
Among the crowd of about 200, some had closed their shops for the occasion;
the boys, schoolbooks in hand, had clearly escaped the classroom. Women
and girls were nowhere to be seen, not even in shapeless chadors, which
before and since the Islamic revolution have in rural Iran been their only
acceptable attire. In Haris, most women still spend their days indoors,
bent over their traditional looms.
Still, it was evident that no one really had anything better to do.
Carpet prices have plunged in recent years, so much so that many families
have given up on the traditional Haris carpets and have begun instead to
imitate the more intricate designs from the regional capital, Tabriz, that
fetch a higher return.
Yet even a rug that takes six months to weave typically earns less than
$300. There is no industry in the area, and little commerce to speak of,
so most men in Haris work as farmers, if they are employed at all, and
earn little more than their rugs would bring.
That has made for many empty pockets, bad news for the local people
and, on this day, bad news for Aziz the Magician.
Once his act was over, everyone knew, he would pass a hat for cash donations;
that was how it had always worked. But he could not collect if he did not
finish, and so eventually, inevitably, someone began to pick a fight.
"Show us what's under the tangerine!" a man in the crowd taunted
as the magician tried to find another way to make the thimble disappear.
His clumsiness detected, Aziz tried to turn a deaf ear, but as others took
up the chant, the audience began to drift away. Finally, Aziz gave up,
packed his bags and fled.
"He'll be back," Hadarani, the grocer, predicted after Aziz
and his truck disappeared down the rutted road. "And when he comes,
everyone will come running again. This isn't the city; we don't have any
other choice."
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