The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Moonshine is just a phone call away in Islamic Iran Posted: 26 Mar 2014 12:39 AM PDT "Have a shot of tequila first, cheer up!" Shahriyar tells guests gathered at his luxury apartment in Tehran. His girlfriend, Shima, said they party every weekend. "Shahriyar has one rule, bring your booze! We drink until morning," she told Reuters on a FaceTime call, as lights flashed to rap music in the background. Despite the ban on alcohol and frequent police raids, drinking in Iran is widespread, especially among the wealthy. Because the Shiite-dominated Muslim state has no discotheques or nightclubs, it all takes place at home, behind closed doors. Some of the alcohol is smuggled in, but many resourceful Iranians make their own. "My friends and I routinely gather to stamp down on grapes in my bathtub," said Hesam, a 28-year-old music teacher in Tehran, asking to be identified only by his first name. "It's fun, a cleansing ritual almost." Some take considerable pride in their results, to the delight of their acquaintances. "I have a friend who makes wine for his own consumption but gives me around 30 bottles per year as well," said 36-year-old Mousa, speaking from in the central city of Isfahan. Only members of religious minorities – Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians – are allowed to brew, distil, ferment and drink – discreetly in the privacy of their homes, and trade in liquor is forbidden. Catholic priests make their own wine for mass. Yet wine-making has a long history in Iran. Scientists believe Stone Age settlers in what is now Iran drank wine with their olives and bread as early as 5,000 BC. The renowned Shiraz variety of grape, named after the city in the south of the country, is said to have been brought back to Europe by the Crusaders. Persian poets Hafez and Omar Khayyam extolled the virtues of the grape. "What drunkenness is this that brings me hope? Who was the cup-bearer and whence the wine?" Hafez wrote in the 14th century. In modern Iran, the Armenian community is the main source of home-brewed spirits, notably arak, a generic variety of vodka extracted from sun-dried grapes. Amin, a 35-year-old sports trainer, has turned his 50-sq-meter yard into a vineyard and rigged up a crude apparatus in his dingy basement to make the spirit, which costs as little as 50 cents a litre. Which means, if you aren't inclined to make your own, wine, beer and moonshine are just a phone call away. "You don't even need to leave the house," said Reza, a computer engineer in Tehran. "Nasser, the Brewer, will deliver it at your door, VIP service." Western plot The availability of alcohol has caused alarm among the country's clerical leaders, many of whom accuse the West of plotting to lure Iranians away from pious religious observance. The number of police raids has declined since the pragmatic President Hassan Rouhani took office in August, but the ban on alcohol and severe punishments for producing and consuming it remain intact, for health as well as religious reasons. And in fact alcohol abuse and alcohol poisoning are becoming real problems. There are as many as 200,000 alcoholics in Iran, according to Iranian media reports, and some believe the number is higher. Last September, a permit was quietly issued for the country's first alcohol rehabilitation centre in Tehran. "The centre was set up in Tehran to help our citizens. You cannot resolve the problem by ignoring it," a health ministry official told Reuters, but would not give any details about the number of people under treatment or even the centre's location. Home-brewed drinks can cause blindness and even death. Iranian media often carry reports of deaths caused by alcohol, or "mashroob". Last year Iranian health officials warned the government over the increasing number of "victims of home-made alcohol", calling on the government to take action. Industrial alcohol is available in supermarkets, purportedly for use in manufacturing but widely consumed. "Ettehadiye Industrial alcohol (at 140 proof) is available in supermarkets for only 80,000 Iranian rials ($3.23) with orange, pineapple and apple flavours," said Hojjat, 25, a student in Tehran. The other big business around alcohol is smuggling. The Iranian judiciary has accused border officials of complicity in the contraband trade. The elite Revolutionary Guards formed in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution, who are in charge of controlling the borders, are widely believed to have a monopoly on the activity, securing a profit of around $12 billion annually, according to opposition websites. "The Guards is like an investment company with a complex of business empires and trading companies ... They are involved," said Mohsen Sazegara, a former deputy prime minister of Iran and founder of the Guard Corps who is now an activist based in the United States. The corps declined to comment on the accusation. Brand names smuggled in from neighbouring Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan sell for as much as $70 a bottle. A can of beer is just under $8 a can and bottles of tequila and French brandy are easy to find on the black market for $100. Russian and Georgian vodka finds its way into the Islamic Republic through the rugged Caucasus, across Central Asia's deserts and the Caspian Sea. Police seizures cause temporary price hikes on the street, but prices and supplies soon recover. Back in Tehran, at the apartment owned by his wealthy businessman father, Shahriyar says his alcohol-fuelled parties allow his circle to get around the social restrictions imposed by the Islamic establishment. "By drinking we forget about our problems," he said. "Otherwise we will go crazy with all the limitations on young people in Iran." – Reuters, March 26, 2014. |
| New gadgets hope to hush Mumbai’s incessant honking Posted: 25 Mar 2014 09:51 PM PDT Non-stop beeping has become the dominant soundtrack to Mumbai as clattering rickshaws, public buses, clapped-out taxis, weaving motorbikes and private cars fight for space on the traffic-clogged roads. Now two separate teams in the city have come up with devices aimed at instilling some peace: one by forcing overzealous horn-users to open their wallets, and another by simply attacking drivers' consciences. "People blow their horns just for no sake," said Jayraj Salgaonkar, who with a group of engineers has developed the 'Oren horn usage meter' (the name 'Oren' derives from local pronunciation of the word 'horn'). The meter does not prevent the horn from working but instead allows for a limited amount of honking, after which it causes the vehicle's tail-lights to flash and alert the traffic police, who could then issue a fine. The driver gets green, amber and red-light warnings over his honk allowance and can top up his meter "like a pre-paid phone card", said Salgaonkar. He is in talks with local authorities to get the device mandated city-wide. "I have invested money and time and emotion," he told AFP, relating his years of exasperation with the city's cacophony. "People take pride in honking their horn. There's an ego trip over having a car. Until you make people pay for their usage of the horn, it's not going to work," said the publisher turned honk activist, who is hoping that the potential revenues brought by the system will help persuade authorities to adopt it. The second invention, also vying for official sanction, less publicly castigates the honkers. 'Project Bleep' involves a little red button on the dashboard that beeps and flashes with a frowning face, "to make the driver conscious that he just honked and make him deliberate why he did it," said Mayur Tekchandaney, one of its creators. "Mostly it's habitual. The driver doesn't realise he's doing it." After testing the device on 30 drivers over six months, Tekchandaney and his team at Mumbai design firm Briefcase found an average 61 percent reduction in honking. "The benefit is to other people on the road, society in general. It creates a nuisance for the driver," said Tekchandaney. Honking a health worry Their goal may sound ambitious in a country where honking is so pervasive that foreign car makers, such as Audi and Volkswagen, fit their Indian vehicles with stronger, longer-life horns. Nationwide, the messages "Horn OK Please" or "Blow Horn" are colourfully painted on the back of most trucks and lorries, encouraging drivers to make their presence audibly known as they overtake. And the noise is only set to increase as more vehicles pile into densely-packed Mumbai, where the middle-class is growing and whose shoddy infrastructure and crowded trains do little to encourage the use of public transport. There are now about 900,000 cars, 10,000 buses and two million two-wheelers plying the roads of the financial capital with a population of some 12 million, according to local transport expert Ashok Datar. Their horns are not just an annoyance, say anti-noise crusaders, who warn that honking is taking a worrying toll on the health of Indian city-dwellers -- especially when combined with construction projects, roadworks and various religious festivals, which are often celebrated with ear-splitting firecrackers. "In hospitals I know people who have suffered very severely even in intensive care units because of the noise (outside)," said Sumaira Abdulali, founder of the Awaaz Foundation which campaigns against noise pollution. She said sound levels in busy parts of Mumbai continuously exceed 85 decibels, breaking the limits recommended by health experts and contributing to high blood pressure, hearing loss and heart disease. "A lot of people in Mumbai are suffering these things and the medical costs are quite high. Cutting down noise would cost much less," she said. Mumbai residents are not alone in their quest for a quieter life. In the capital New Delhi, a group of campaigners takes to the streets several times a month, plastering cars with "Do Not Honk!" stickers. Licence to honk In southern Bangalore, residents last year launched an "I Won't Honk Campaign", backed by Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid, which aimed to get drivers pledging not to use their horns unless completely necessary. But given the ingrained habit of honking, it seems such campaigns or gadgets are unlikely to work unless they are made compulsory. "Most people say there is excess honking but they think it's the other drivers," said Ram Prasad at Final Mile, a behavioural research group in Mumbai which has examined the honking phenomenon. Prasad also warned that introducing traffic police fines may only encourage bribing, giving drivers the feeling that "they have only extra licence to blow and honk". "Any device that gives subtle feedback, people will be more willing to take," he said. – AFP, March 26, 2014. |
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