A 105 Year Old Smoking Strongman - Tuesday, February 23rd

The desert air gifted me some of the deepest sleep I’ve had in some time. That was, until my 4:30am wake up call from darling Ali.

Stony silent, we drove into the desert to watch the sun rise over the Kaluts. It was a true spectacle. Like watching dawn break on Mars.

When the show was over, it was time for a morning jog. Ali was jumpy about letting me go too far into the desert without supervision as any injuries would cost him his livelihood. So, much like the famous Siberian training scene in Rocky IV, I was tailed by a car driving very, very slowly.

During the summer the temperatures here can regularly reach as high as 55°C. In fact the record for the hottest surface temperature on earth was set just down the road. 70.6°C. Not a place for the feint of heart. Thankfully this being winter, today’s top temperature was positively fridgid 27°C.

Back at our homestay, the welcome reappearance of carrot jam. A whole jar of the stuff. I even had a hot shower, powered by a furnace fuelled by dry palm leaves. They had been diligently chopped in preparation for my morning ablutions.

All in all, the proprietor Mustafa spent about an hour labouring to give me 10 minutes of hot water. Spoilt doesn’t even cut it.

Mustafa was a sage old gentleman and immediately apologised for the state of his hair and beard. One of the villagers had died an untimely death and so the way the whole male population of the village payed tribute by letting their hair and beards go untouched for fourty days. It’s a simple but very touching act of remembrance. I wondered what the women did.

The Iranians, by and large, have much more respect for their dead than European societies. We have a quick funeral and shove them into a hole on the ground. Out of sight, out of mind. Here they hold mass family gatherings on the anniversary of a death to celebrate and remember each relative. This happens every year, so they are never forgotten.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of family structures in Iranian society. You don’t leave home until you are married here and there is still a fair amount of arranged marriage. Although it’s seriously on the wane. On working days, almost every emplyee in every office, farm and factory downs tools and heads home for lunch with their families.

There are, of course, positives and negatives to the centrality of family life to Iranians. It can be a great support network in times of strife. Or it can be a choker on your ability to live an independent life and make your own choices.

I’d heard arguments for both sides and felt that the right answer was somewhere in the middle of the two. The difficulty was navigating your way to that balance. It’s a process that takes time and for many, has not yet begun.

When we returned to Kerman, we picked up a few friends of Ali’s and made our way to the Holiday Village. There was a go karting track there that was apparently one of the best in Iran.

We passed a 1970s Chevrolet on the way and I remarked that I had seen many Buicks in Isfahan. Ali explained that they are actually used in beauty pageants, strictly limited to American pre-1978 cars. I’m sure many Americans would delight this little fact.

The Holiday Village was 30 minutes out of town and a bit of a curiosity. There was indeed a go karting track. There was also a mini fun fare, a large swimming pond, pool tables, a restaurant and the shell of a half built hotel. What there clearly wasn’t, was other people.

Thankfully we had a nine strong group so could sort of fill the void. Not that we planned to do anything except go karting.

The karting itself also had a few notable absences. No safety briefing, no protective suits, no supervision and no seat belts. What it did have in spades was a driving experience so terrifyingly fun that it made me glad I had spare underwear in the car.

Later that evening we went back into Kerman to watch Zuhane. A sport that dates back around 3000 years. There isn’t any competition as such. It’s best described as peaceful war games aerobics for manly old codgers.

The action takes place in a 16 sided pit surrounded by an audience and is presided over by a Morshed. Essentially a sedentary referee/pacemaker with a drum and a microphone. The man in the middle of the bullseye in the pit does an action, then the rest copy it. Simple.

The only exception to this is twirling. Only one person can twirl. The others watch and stop him falling over. How twirling was party to ancient military combat is a question I simply can’t answer.

The leader of this particular group was a former military man called Dr Zackeri. He was 105. Although sporting a slight but unyielding hunch, he was lean as a whippet with skin taught as a snare drum. He shuffled around the room with an almost crab like grace.

I asked if he had a secret to his youth. “Cigarettes. I’ve been smoking like a chimney for 70 years and it’s kept me going.”
“Anythhing else?” I wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“At 60 I married a 16 year old.”
Duly noted.

I had assumed that the good Dr Zackeri would be a mere observer of his
ten man band of strongmen. I was wrong.

After a prayer the Morshad began a heart thuddering beat and I watched Dr Zackeri perform 20 minutes of press ups. Then 20 minutes of vigorous mimicery of armed combat. Lunges, shield thrusts, arm thwacks and neck rolls. My jaw was on the floor after the first ten press ups.

When I thought he had finally worn himself out, he paused to speak. Barely out of breath.
“An old lion is still a lion.” He roared.
And with that he picked up two solid walnut wood batons, far bigger than his own thighs and began swinging them over his head like they were full of helium.
“Are they heavy?” I asked Ali.
“I can barely pick them up.” He confessed.

When it was all over we said our goodbyes. Outside, wearing a cream four button suit, was Dr Zackeri. True to his word he was puffing on a thin molasses coloured cigarette. He said it was most effective if you hold the smoke in as long as possible.

We made straight for the bus station. It was time for my overnight bus to Bander Abbas, a port town on the Arabian Gulf. From there I would take a boat to Qeshm island. Perhaps there would be a beach or two waiting for me there. Either way, it was a refreshing break from the desert.

It was another emotional goodbye. Shiva and Ali had been wonderful hosts and had really gone out of their way to make my time in Kerman as special as possible. Like so many other Iranians, I would miss them a great deal.