Cookie

My grandmother was a wealthy and generous woman. She had built a house for my mom and dad before I was born in 1941. We all moved in by 1942, My mother's family also joined us and were living on the second floor of our house. My aunt had a 16 year old daughter who was attending the French high school in Tehran, called Joan of Arch. Our house of up to date for the time, but did not have indoor hot water or bathing facilities. It was during the second World War and Iran was occupied by the allied forces. There was not much we could do, as I grew up and started not incing different things, I was introduced to the public bath. It was in my neighborhood, and my mother , aunt would pack a big traveling type suitcase. We had to walk all the way to the public bath house. Then, we had to wait for a bathing unit to become available. Then could go in go in and start wetting our bodies . There were also, professional scrubbers who would come in, and give us a good massage and rubdown. Similar to the ones in the present Turkish baths. The women used to order Hanna, to dye their hairs also peeled pomegranate, munch on while the operation was going on. We used to spend almost half the day in the public bath. It was all fun and delightful. My presence with the women was considered harmless because of my age. As I grew older, and started noticing the difference between my private parts, and my cousin. I started making comments, and asking curios and informative questions. I wanted to know why my cousin was missing a major part, or why she was covered with hair in her private parts area. They were all very Innocent questions and for information only, but it blew like a bomb. I was banned from going with the women, and could not do my scientific research in the public bath houses. It was the end of era for me, and I had to go with my father. The visits were not as interesting. They created some new curiosity and questions which were not fully answered. I concluded, you can not win them all, and have to be satisfied with what you have gotten already.