When I was a kid there was a famous prostitute in Abadan called Mahin Chamani whose name in the local dialect had changed to Meychamani . Meychamani was not famous because she was the most beautiful, most elegant or even a big mama. She was only famous because she was the most available, and hence the title “Chamani” which meant “On the Grass”, Mahin Chamani, Mahin on the grass.
I once saw her. I was in a bus and my brother said look, look, Meychamani. I leant over him to see the unordinary and saw a woman like all other women who had veiled herself in a chador and who wore a cotton dress and loose cotton pyjamas to cover her legs. Standing in the bus stop in her plastic slippers she seemed uncomfortable, perhaps embarrassed of the fingers and the peering eyes.
I never met her again, because back then I was a little boy and before I could have the pleasure of meeting her in person, the Islamic revolution had happened. In Abadan, like every other city, the newly formed revolutionary committees were struggling to identify and punish the enemies of the revolution and remnants of the old regime. The punishment in most cases was execution by firing squads. In absence of the guilty, many of those who were arrested were nothing but the prey in the blood game of the lawless land. The unforgiving god of revolution had arrived and the devotees were praising the new lord. The ever thirsty god roared for blood and the worshipers sacrificed the weak of the society at his feet, wishing and praying for better life.
One of the anti-revolutionaries that they arrested was Meychamani who by then was a mature woman. She was accused of perverting the otherwise good men and was sentenced to death for all her sins. She was put in front of a firing squad and executed by the worshipers of the god of insanity. She lived without love and she was killed without love. Her unjust death proved once again that poverty is far more expensive than what it looks. May she rest in peace.
