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The Guardian Homa Khaleeli  In the gridlocked streets of Iran's capital city, traffic jams are a way of life. But while most of Tehran's 9.5 million drivers find them a daily nuisance, one group of inhabitants can't get enough.
Every Thursday and Friday evening, groups of young men with spiked hair and tight T-shirts jump into their cars and speed towards two of the city's busiest roads, using the fumes as cover for illicit romance. With strict morality laws banning unmarried men and women meeting in public, and house parties raided by police on the lookout for "immoral" behaviour, dating in Iran is extremely difficult. So the Middle East's longest street, Valiasr Avenue, and the smart Africa Boulevard have become the hottest sites in Tehran's dating scene. While their families escape the summer heat by picnicking in parks, the boys use the traffic as an excuse for pulling up alongside cars filled with groups of girls, whose mandatory headscarves are pushed as far back as possible on their carefully arranged hair. "I want to kill myself for you!" a boy cries as he spots a pretty girl in the next car, while at a set of traffic lights girls giggle and throw their phone numbers to the boys who have managed to snatch a few minutes' conversation with them. While flower sellers and accordion players walk the streets, happy to take advantage of the amorous drivers and the jams they create, not everyone is so keen on the meetings. As I head up Valiasr Avenue, police cars have closed part of the road. "They always do this," one girl explains. "They are diverting the traffic to stop everyone driving up and down - they only do it on a Thursday and Friday night." But it would take more than this to stop the flirting - at a busy roundabout two cars have crashed and, before the police arrive, the boys have just enough time to swap numbers with the girls they have hit. |
