THE PEACOCK THRONE ONCE A UPON A TIME

From the Flames of Persia to the Devil’s Feast

The celebration of uninterrupted monarchial rule for 2,500 years enviable to  all the world’s monarchial institutions was commemorated in the famed ruins of Persepolis.   The site chosen as the authentic site of the founding of the Persian empire by Cyrus the Great, it is also the ultimate symbol of Iran’s monarchy and civilization.   

I was honored to be privy to such a historical phenomenon never to be repeated, encompassing the “center of gravity of the world” at that time.  This event has remained etched firmly in memory despite the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, the fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty, Jimmy Carter’s indecisiveness, of his aggressive national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinsk, and my failing Farsi skills, the recall of such an event needs to be told from a perspective of how those three filled days of partying, ceremonies, Son et Lumière shows, fountains of Beluga’s finest, to Moet’s Premiere Cru.

Fifty 'tents' (actually prefabricated luxury apartments with traditional Persian tent-cloth surrounds) were arranged in a star pattern around a central fountain, and vast numbers of trees were planted around them in the desert, recreating something of how the ancient Persepolis would have looked.  

International invitees included the rich and famous of the time, a dozen kings and queens, ten princes and princesses, presidents and first ladies, sheiks, sultans, emperors, vice presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, ambassadors.   I was merely the teenage daughter of an ambassador, stuffed in between greatness and palace etiquette: to be seen but not heard. My father had an important role in 1969, as he was instrumental in achieving the successful State Visit of  King Bhumipol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit of Thailand to Iran.

To celebrate this momentous event, The Shah of Iran was to make a ritualistic speech in front of all invited guests at Cyrus’s tomb. The parade of Persian history in front of all Kings, Queens and Head of States in front of Cyrus's Tomb was spectacular.  Persepolis an ancient site, is 60 kms north of the beautiful town of Shiraz.  Known for its exquisite roses, Shiraz became the cultural capital of Iran.

The Royal guests had direct telephone and telex connections back to their respective country and the whole celebration was televised to the world by way of a satellite connection from the site. The large Tent of Honor was designed for the reception of the dignitaries. The Banqueting Hall, the largest structure was kept cool by several

air-conditioning units combating 40c heat during the day; then turned warm for the stark cold nights.

  

Maxim’s of Paris flew in cargo plane loads, feeding 600 guests for 5 hours on the first evening.   The menu was lavish, paired with extravagant wine and Champagne from Château de Saran 

Like liquid gold with every sip, the Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1945 was also served to all the 600 guests. Thousands of empty bottles were then buried in prepared dug up sites, so there can be no evidence of alcohol  consumption under Islamic rule.

Quails eggs stuffed with golden Imperial Caspian caviar followed by mousse of crayfish tails with Nantua sauce.   A choice of roast saddle of lamb with truffles but the piece de resistance was definitely the roasted peacock, Iran’s ancient national symbol.  Cleaning the palate with glazed port fresh figs with cream and raspberry champagne sorbet was refreshing as if this was last nights meal.  Unfortunately it also proved to be the beginning of an anti-Shah revolution as Khomeni describes this as the “Devils’s Feast”.  I was lucky enough to taste these delectable morsels behind  the kitchen with my handsome minder, Mumtaz.  His sole job was to keep me safe out of harm's way.

Every night the female guests received a souvenir at the dinner table, every male counter part also had their names and titles engraved on souvenirs, etched discreetly with the Peacock crest, symbol of the Pahlavi dynasty. 

Time Magazine put the event costing 100 Billion dollars,  the French press actually doubled that number.  The lavishness was  in fact astonishing to witness.  Alexandre and Carita, the two top French salons came with throngs of personnel to adequately coif Princess Anne and Princess Grace’s locks among other royalties for the festivities.

Once upon a time, my fairy story to be amongst  Kings, Princes, Heads of States left right and centre came true, but nothing compares to being lifted by the Imperial Helicopter for a brief sensational 20 minuet ride on return to Shiraz.   To Cyrus the Great, to the Pahlavi's, and especially to the Iranian people, who suffered incalculable deprivation  by such extravagant show of power, I take with me such incredible memories never to be repeated.  

To the Shah and the Shahbanu, this was no party of the year but was the celebration of 25 centuries. At the peak of his sovereignty, it was a show of power, of style, and the penultimate extravagance against the suffering of his people to the world.  To those that were privy either serving behind the scenes, or invitees, it was an event that is so unique, deserves once upon a time, a spot on a blog.  

BE NOT AFRAID OF YOUR DESTINATION

Since this blog is about travel, and mostly done by airplane, let me first pray for those 239 souls on board MH370 that went missing on March 7 2014.

Conspiracy theories abound when a flight goes missing with not a trace.   From hijacking to catastrophic explosions, to pilot error even alien abduction, the jittery feeling when today thousands of people board their flight, however long or short, must give enough angst on an already set of jumpy nerves.

The predominant thought of countless sorrow of extended families members of each passenger is incalculable.   Even as a spectator, reading the latest updates, leaves the pain of sorrow that reverberates and plays on the mind.  Exhausting theories gone through and causes get untangled like a fine tooth-comb. 

There is the thought that each 239 passengers, mostly strangers to each other, come simultaneously to the same fate together.  How cosmically do we explain this phenomenon.  For instance the Indian politician was killed in the 1973 air disaster, his grandson seemingly called to the same fate on the missing Malaysian 777.   Is there a connection?   Is there more to than meets the eye?  Or this is a random act that may have a reason.

The passengers were mainly Chinese, at least 30 employees were from a US microchip company.  Perhaps a theory that someone not wanting the Chinese to have 20 Freescale Semiconductor experts,  a US company producing embedded microchips that cloak the high-tech electronic warfare weaponry. The Malaysian Prime Minister has now come out to say the action on board the plane was deliberate by someone well versed in flying.   It doesn’t take much reasoning for the possibility of hijacking for this type of technological expertise, which is in existence.

The fact that the employees were on board has sparked one of the many conspiracy theories associated with the plane vanishing, that there was electronic weaponry on board.   Whoever deliberately maneuvered the plane had intimate knowledge of military radar, corridor coverage, satellite pass and all military and civilian airspace.

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkestan Islamic Party, released  a video of one of its clerics threatening attacks on Chinese Buddhists. The group is linked to Al-Qaeda and wants China’s largely-Muslim Xinjiang Province to gain independence. The Turkic population there is called Uighurs.

An Uighurian passenger on board MH370, Mr Maimaitijiang Abula, now being scrutinized for his background. He is from Kashgar in Xinjiang Province, a town near the borders of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. An online resume states he was an assistant professor at a university in Turkey. From 2004-2005, he was a researcher for a training and simulation center in Sweden. One report says he received flight simulation training there.  According to his CV online, a Ph.d holder he “designed an integrated future soldier training system based on sensors, communication subsystems and integrated-helmet subsystems and performed simulations for real-time.”

Two flight corridors are now being looked into.  Northbound all the way to the Caspian sea or southbound, from Indonesia to the West of Perth, Australia.  The theory of Aliens abducting the whole aircraft maybe a little way off but at this point anything is possible.

It leaves the authorities now to check into every facet and detail of those 239 souls on board to come up with any answers.   

This is when we bow our heads to what is greater than mankind and ask for help.   My heart goes to all the immediate and extended families of the missing MH370

MOST ILLUMINATING PLACE IF YOU CARE TO UNDERSTAND

Tomb of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan

Going back in time, writing about a place I once lived, and the people I hold dear to my heart will chronologically give way to the maturity in which I find myself. 

The time was mid sixties, the place involved crisscrossing between PECHS Housing estate (my father’s residence) and Clifton Road, (my school) Karachi.   The political power then was Ayub Khan and the era was the Beatles mania combined with a Catholic Convent school, suffice to say my time there was stimulating to say the least. I am re-living a time in Karachi, Pakistan in the mid sixties.

Third culture kids like myself being tossed around and slung into essentially strange places either sink or swim.   Credit is due to my devout Buddhist father for teaching me to acclimatize myself into two things;  languages and religions.   A very  innovative and brave Dad considering that I could have swung heavily to another dimension not of his own.  So the Urdu language was my first introduction into the world of Islam.

A Mandela quote still haunts me:  

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

My first Beatles album, PLEASE PLEASE ME, arrived from England through friends in the diplomatic post.   Swooning over Paul McCartney, I was listening at the lowest volume possible during the India /Pakistan War in 1965, under blackouts and bombs.  Only two days before the start of war, the Sindh dessert-storm howled bringing in sand through tiny crevices of this beautiful old house.

Pinky

Pinky or Benazir as Pakistan's PM

The Bhutto family

My childhood friends ranged from diplomat families to political families and one of them stood out as bossy Pinky.   We knew her as bossy boots, utterly clever, she was born in the same year but yet she was in a couple of classes higher.   Articulate, intelligent and pretty, she was always delivered to school by car, her house being only 500 meters away at 70 Clifton Road.    She was non-other than Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zufikar Bhutto, the   political hero to many Pakistanis.  


Islamic fervor was evident on Fridays, when school closed at noon. Subjugating the heat by way of cool stone-walls, marble floors, the residence defeats in sound proof as prayers all over the city floats inside all afternoon to the disrespectful reverberation of Lennon & McCartney’s “She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah.”   Forgive me for I was all of a raging teenager trying to bring sanity into my world.   Buddhism at home, Catholic Catechism during the week, and Islamic prayers on Friday – so “Strawberry Fields Forever” was my “out.”

Living multi-culturally, Islamic Pakistan gave insight into yet another faith..  One civilized afternoon, partaking in the rituals of  colonial English  tea in the garden, fashioned with cucumber sandwiches with date & walnut cake, a shriek and a scream gurgling from a Memsahib’s throat as a human thumb and finger was rudely dropped from the sky onto her lap.   The Begums, quite used to such droppings nonchalantly waved at the butler to dispose of the matter.  Such was a Karachi Friday afternoon. 

Whilst the Begums and the Memsahibs were tea-partying, the daughters were grooving to the strains of Twist and Shout, and I saw her standing there, but Pinky felt all this was rather shallow and so started to teach me about the different religions.

Tower of Silence

Thus my education on the Zoroastrian faith, the Sunni’s and the Shia’s began that very afternoon.   The Parsee’s or Zoroastrians are from Persia.  The community disposes its dead by placing the bodies in a place known as the ‘Tower of Silence’. The tower is open to the sky as it has no roof. The corpse is subjected to the rays of the sun to decompose and vultures to eat it.   In the days when there was less population, disposing corpse in this manner was considered efficient and less harmful to diseases.  As the growth of inhabitants increased, the city has spread to the nether regions of the Tower of Silence, this particular one being called the Clifton Cantonment.  It was not far from the residence.

Pinky’s mother Begum Nusrat was from an Iranian business family, known as Nusrat Isfahan.   Nusrat Shia’s faith married Zulfikar’s Sunni faith.  The disagreements between the two faiths traces back to the 7^th century over the successor to the Prophet Muhammad arose.  The Sunni’s believed that the Muslim community should select the Prophet’s successor; The Shia’s believed that the Prophet already chose his son-in-law Ali to be the successor.  

A Navjote ceremony

Pinky was very much a practicing Shia up until her last days before her assassination.   Poking at our dancing school friend Tilat Qureshi, bossily demanding her to show me her sacred shirt, sudreh and the sacred cord kusti that all practicing Zoroastrian Parsi’s must wear at all times.

Between the ages of 7 to 11 all Parsees go through Navjote, the coming of age and acceptance to the faith.  Younger than the Jews going through Bar Mitzvah, Tilat was taught prayers in the ancient Avestan and Pahlavi languages and also how to tie and untie the sacred cord by a priest.

It was an afternoon fixated into my inner soul.  Some things stick and forever a powerful comeback when posed questions from non-believers;

President Ayub Khan & my father

“All actions are judged by motives, and each person will be rewarded according to their intention.”

National Day celebrated at our Embassy, President General Ayub Khan, a Sandhurst military graduate, very much an imposing tall figure, and a huge presence gave the party its mark of success.   Toasts were given to the Heads of States, although no alcohol in evidence, no disrespect was meant, it could have perhaps, been masked by coca-cola.  

Imran Khan  (famous cricketer)

The city has since moved to Islamabad, a move Ayub Khan made in 1964 and by  1975 became the Pakistani capital.  Karachi remains a city port.   So during that era, we travelled between Lahore and Rawalpindi on the way to Islamabad on a constant basis.  A 700 mile trek up to Islamabad without stopping would have been arduous. 

Ikramullah Khan Niazi, and his wife Shaukat Khanum, Imran’s parents, always welcomed my parents for  a night stopover in Lahore, the city of famous cricketing hero Imran Khan, my idol at the time.  

Islamabad, a city well planned was business for my father, but trekking to Srinagar was a spoilt haven for me and my mother.   A 300 mile trek through mountainous terrains, crossing dangerous borders – Srinagar was magical and closer to God if ever there was a word to describe such a moment.  During that time India and Pakistan were forever quarreling so the trip was made with trepidation on all sides, emotionally and diplomatically.  However my mother’s inherited adventurous nature, dominated by determination had apparently passed on to me, so together with some Nawabs we took on the journey.  

Houseboats on Dal lake, Srinagar

Imagine, with no way of communication, we were gone for 10 days,  anything could have happened from road accidents, gunfights, hi-jacking to a number of unmentionable things.  Either Allah or the Hindu Gods, managed to protect us from such human wickedness, we arrived at the spectacular Dal Lake in Srinagar, it was the Jewel in the Crown of Kashmir. 

Lots of North Indian food on the houseboat was followed by a visit of a distinguished Turkish gypsy coffee reader.  Supposedly I was to have twins.  Thank goodness the predictability of the coffee sediments got swallowed, had I not swallowed the remnants perhaps my future would have been more accurate.

As memory fades, I cannot escape the few phrases I said in moments of emotion  Mai aap se Mohabbat karta Hun   to  many a Pakistani - oops. 

And always 

Bahut Bahut Shukriya 

and lastly 

Mujhe aab ki bahut kami mehsoos huwi