dear life 87

dear life,
a couple of days ago i went with a friend to Tehran's grand bazaar and from there we passed through "Seid Esmail Bazaar". If you haven't heard of the place, it is an old market where they sell robbed stuff, whatever you can think of, where the air is heavy with men gathering around shops all looking as if they have something to hide yet they don't care as it is their place and no one dares to attack them there, where there is not one woman around. we pass in front of this tea house - you know the old traditional type, with tall windows showing inside, plastic chairs, old tables, and of course samavars and hookahs, a men-only environment, and this is not any men-only space, as the men are the looti type, thieves and drug addicts type, the ones you see in old Iranian films. my friend teases me, "would you like a tea here?" he doesn't believe i would take it seriously and dare or feel at ease to go in. we pass by the street looking around at the shops some of which are even smaller than one square meter, making fun of the situation and the tea house issue, and then he moves toward the main street. "aren't we going to have tea?" i ask. he looks me up and says he has no problem with it; i thought to myself, "he thinks i am joking." so i make a uturn and we head toward the tea house. he asks the server preparing hookah in front of the door to the shop if he would serve us tea. the guy looks at me and says, "i don't think this is a proper place for a lady." i smile at him and say, "i didn't ask you to decide whether it is proper or not, that i can decide for myself; just tell us whether you serve us tea." he is shocked but doesn't want to look so. he looks inside the shop and murmers, apparently not so happy, "let me prepare a table for you in one corner, come to the other door," and i can hear him saying under his breath, "why this place?" we go to the other door and sit at the table he has chosen for us, a table he has decided is safer than the rest as more distance seperates it from others. we wait for the tea and it really feels exciting to me thinking what all these men around me are thinking or how strange they are feeling in my presence. i tell my friend of how i don't feel at all at ill at such a place and how i would no doubt feel at ill at a place that seems of my own kind yet is not part of my familiar surrounding. "the more different it is, the easier to absorb it," i conclude. we are making fun of what would happen if i asked the server to serve me hookah! oh my god! the guy sitting on the other end of our table is smoking it so deep, and i am sure he is high on something else, probably opium. i feel even my friend not being at ease, despite himself denying it. the server arrives with two teas and says again, "so many places to have tea and you have to choose here?" he is really not happy of our choosing his tea house. it is funny how i feel thrilled of all this. it is like breaking this barrier, even a barrier as absurd as that, even if in the presence of a male friend alongside who is considered kind of an assurance, is giving me this confidence about myself. breaking taboos can give you energy and make you feel good about yourself, or maybe that's just me. i don't know. i don't care. that tea really tasted good, although i am sure the taste did not come from the tea itself. that tea tasted much better than a hundred drunk in our usual coffee shop.