Two nights in Tehran

The morning of the attack

On the fateful Friday the 13th, I woke up earlier than usual, around 3:30 am. We were in the midst of a long weekend, and it’s not unusual for me to wake up earlier, having had a good rest on the previous day. Something felt off. We later learnt that others in the apartment had heard the sounds of explosions and woken up, but at that time I did not know and went back to sleep. About an hour later, as part of my usual habit, I checked news on my phone. Israel had attacked Iran, and there were explosions at the nuclear bases as well as in the capital. My father later confirmed to me that he heard an explosion in the night, but dismissed it as a thunderstorm.

As I began processing what was happening, the political and military implications slowly became clearer. Nobody was expecting an attack now, including the Generals who were murdered in cold blood with their wives and children, for they chose to be with their families rather than in safe houses that night. There was a lot of cautious optimism when the indirect talks started with America, and even though it dwindled as time went by, the next round of talks were still scheduled for Sunday. As someone who has followed the happenings in Middle East keenly over several years, my own opinions of Iran closing a deal with America were much more bearish than my colleagues. Yet the enormity of what happened on Friday took a while to dawn upon us.

Trump hadn’t changed. His advisors may have, but he remained the same reckless man who had ordered General Soleimani’s killing.

It emerged later that the attack was planned months in advance if not years, that the negotiations were a facade meant to lull Iranians into complacency and give Israel time. It was a shock and awe campaign, involving eliminating the top Military leadership and Nuclear scientists via targeted assassinations, considering their families and neighbors collateral damage. It was meant to show how incompetent the Iranian leadership was, and it was expected that the general public, disgruntled and under the pressure of crippling sanctions will rise, echoing the Syrian regime change operation. Drones, smuggled into the country, or perhaps assembled locally, launched several attacks, and the media blitzkrieg was coordinated at the same time to show how Tehran was Mossad’s playground, how deeply infiltrated it was and how resistance was futile. Those who were not assassinated were sent Mossad messages to resign within 12 hours or face the same fate.

From Festivity to Grief

Making this humiliation even more shocking for the Iranians was perhaps the fact that this happened just a day before Ghadeer, one of the biggest holidays in Iran. The Eid of Ghadeer commemorates a historic event where Prophet announced the succession of Imam Ali publically in the Shiite Narrative, and there are grand celebrations including fireworks the night before. In Tehran for example, there is a 10km stretch of road where this celebration takes place, free food is distributed, songs are played - something I was looking forward to experience first hand this year.

It soon became clear that celebration had turned into grief and anger. The Friday prayers were still held, and there was a protest march afterwards. I had plans to go out and explore the city as my parents were visiting, plans that were soon ditched. There was a speech from Supreme Leader being telecasted on TV, and an SMS from the president, both promising that this aggression would be dealt with strongly and wont go unanswered. TV channels showed images of bombed residential buildings—children’s books and toys scattered among the debris. News came out of Netanyahu claiming he had nothing against the people, and the regime change intentions started to become clearer. Israel had claimed to destroy most of Iran’s defensive and attack capabilities, and there was no Iranian response for much of the day, so the talk of a damning response felt boastful and bombastic, adding insult to injury.

By evening I felt compelled to go out, perhaps to sooth my own nerves. We went to Tajrish square, which is an old market and quite a busy spot, just to see what the mood was like. There was too little traffic, even for a Friday (which is a holiday in Iran). People were going out about their work, deeply upset at their government for being able to do nothing. The Taxi driver, seeing a bunch of men in Army fatigue near the square, murmured expletives, something like Israel being able to strike anywhere at will while these idiots chill out here.

I had moved to Tehran barely 6 months ago, as a family of 4. Tehran, in the best of times, is under threat, but expatriates have a high risk tolerance in general, and foreigners who work in Iran even more so. I was in Turkey before this stint, and compared to the unwelcoming people in Istanbul, Iranian hospitality felt even more wonderful than it is. An Indian expat in most places does not evoke any curiosity, but in Tehran, it’s enough to get conversations started. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Iran is now generally so isolated, that the few foreigners that are there are objects of amazement. We had settled in now, much to my own surprise, to the extent that my son started called Tehran home. My parents were visiting, and I was planning to invite rest of the family for the summer break.

As the news spread internationally (remember that both the attack and the media blitzkrieg were planned to perfection), WhatsApp notifications lit up the phone - friends and family asking if we were safe. This experience wasn’t new to me. A few years ago I had just moved to Istanbul and the Gaziantep earthquake happened. I had gone through this back then, learning of the quake not through news (Istanbul was thousands of kilometers away from the epicenter) but via concerned WhatsApp messages. It was mildly irritating for me, so I can only imagine how deeply humiliating it would be for the Iranians, even the Iranians who can’t stand their government.

There is a deep feeling of resentment against the government in Tehran among ordinary Tehranians, and I have long given up on explaining to Iranians that they aren’t doing that bad . For example, the neighboring Turkey, a part of NATO, with no sanctions has a currency depreciation that puts Rial to shame, and Pakistan, a nuclear power goes to IMF with a begging bowl, both without any sanctions. So Netanyahu’s and Trumps calculation of this shock triggering a regime change wasn’t really misplaced. The mood was as depressing as it could be, and an Iranian government response was nowhere to be seen.

Hasbara, the perception war

Iran is a land of contrasts. Strangers often go out of their way to help foreigners, if for nothing else then to practice their English—so much so that it can feel overwhelming. It now annoys me, for I no longer feel like a foreigner having picked up the language. On the other hand, due to years of sanctions and being cut off from the global economy things we take for granted in rest of the world do not exist. None of the payment options like visa and master card for example work, so as a tourist without a bank account it can be extremely hard to get by. One such thing I miss is the lack of English news on TV. Local broadcast is 100% in Farsi. Youtube and Twitter are blocked, and very few news sites work without the VPN. What would be surprising to most people though is that the censorship is not always from Iranian side - eg Indian news sites wont work often because they are hosted on a US provider who has to comply with the American sanctions and deny service to Iran. While I can now make sense of the Farsi news programs, this left my parents and rest of the family totally dependent on me for clarity amidst the chaos.

By late afternoon, WhatsApp was only working intermittently on the wifi connection, although it was still up on the cellular network. Several years ago, WhatsApp, like most other social media was banned in the country, and barely 6 months ago the new, progressive government had lifted this ban. Israel was claiming Mossad had a base in Tehran from where the missiles were fired. That this was propoganda only became clearer later - the modus operandi for much of the assassinations was using drones. Drones that were either smuggled in or assembled locally by the thousands, placed in Vans, apparently controlled and launched remotely via SIM cards and internet. ¹ This was the same playbook used by Ukraine against Russia, when drones hidden in Trucks were used to attack and air defenses, which focus on aerial threats and not locally launched drones proved helpless. Hundreds of such drones were launched in the coming days, and thousands were later found, in warehouses and vans across Tehran. This was a critical Iranian Intelligence failure, and was used to portray the weakness and ineptitude of the Iranian regime. The government decided to start blocking WhatsApp and internet in general in response.

Retaliations and Escalations

Amidst the uneasy calm, late evening, and unexpectedly for the posh Tehran locality I was in, there were chants of God is great, Death to Israel. As we looked out of the window, we could also hear the opposing chants of Death to the Dictator . The deep schisms in the Iranian society were playing in the street, but the first feeling that struck me here was the ability of people in Tehran to say things about the government from their rooftops that we could not imagine in other places (Turkey for example). Anyway - the chants were a sign something important had happened.

As I turned on the TV, what initially seemed like a display of Firecrackers (to be expected on the even of Eid of Ghadeer), turned out to be ballistic missiles hitting Tel Aviv. Live camera feeds from Israel showed sirens blaring and direct hits. Anchors talked about razing Tel Aviv to the ground. Israel’s retaliation did not take long, and we could hear the air defense activations, lighting up the Tehran sky. In the midst of all this, there were people in the street, holding flags, expressing their joy at the response. Not only the military capabilities were mostly intact, the military leadership transition had happened smoothly, and it seemed the threats of a crippling response weren’t empty words this time.

Iran’s existential hatred for Israel may be hard to understand for a lot of people, but the Genocide in Gaza has changed this. As heart rending images of children being murdered with bombs are telecast, with the realization that every Israel citizen has to compulsorily serve for years in the military (this is also true of Iran), its not hard to see why people think all of the settlers are complicit. Perhaps for the first time residents of Tel Aviv experienced what Gazans experience on a daily basis, and what Tehranians had just experienced. Wars are easy on TV, sometimes even glorified and sold like realty TV, but for those at the receiving end, it’s fearful. We had a tough night at hand too. Night combat, even when Missiles didn’t exist conferred an advantage in much of human history. Even in the age of Radars, it seems both Israel and Iran preferred to attack at night. The whole night, we kept hearing sounds of explosions - fortunately for our neighborhood, there were no hits nearby, so the sound was low intensity, almost like the sound of firecrackers you hear several days after Diwali. Not the kind that would terrify the kids, but you know that it could be your building next. I still slept soundly seeking comfort in sleep and with the realization that there is not much we can do - there are no shelters in Tehran unlike in Tel Aviv where building regulation mandates it due to constant threat of Hamas Missiles.

Defiant City

The next day was the day of Eid, but the mood already changed. The celebratory overlays for Eid on TV had given way to one for National Revenge, the celebrations were shortened - the 10 km street celebration was turned into a 2 km walk of protest. The fact that it was still organized though as Tehran was under threat, speaks something about the resilience of the Iranian people. Perhaps the regime wanted to send a message - that it still had popular support, or perhaps, as the Alchemist readers know, its the Islamic notion of maktub (if its your fate to die you will die wherever you hide), or the Shiite belief in Martyrdom, but kids, women and men turned out in large numbers waving flags. This is an image that has played across on Iranian TV in the days to come, that as the settlers in Israel live under the ground in fear of Missile attacks, Iranians celebrated over the ground and life went by, even as bombers flew by.

Initially - the government tried to project this defiance a bit too seriously. Saturday was off, but Sunday was the first day at work that week, and it was announced that schools, banks and every other place would be open, and University exams will be held as per plan, while Israel had already announced closures as it starts its Operation Rising Lion. The covert operation, which was initially claimed to prevent Iran from getting the bomb was actually a cover for regime change. ² Pre 1979, the Iranian flag of the Pahlavi dynasty had a rising lion on its flag, and monarchists in Iran who pledge their fealty to the son of the deposed Pahlavi King use this iconography still. Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people to stand up against the regime, trying to underscore he was not against the people. But this was the same man who had said the same words to Palestinians, using starvation, bombing and collective punishment as a tool so Gazans rise against Hamas. The fact that Israel chose to kill the Generals and nuclear scientists at their homes with their families and children, while it could have as easily chosen to assassinate them at work, exposed what Netanyahu’s intentions were. The regime change that Trump and Netanyahu had hoped for did not happen, and people just rallied around the flag.

Decisions and Departure

In the midst of this, I had a choice to make too. While multiple nuclear sites and cities were bombed, it was clear that Tehran was the prize. Israel had bombed a hospital, and in a single residential building 20 kids had died. ³ Should we escape from Tehran too? There were already Gaza style warnings from Netanyahu for people to evacuate Tehran. It may sound foolish to anyone who knows that 10 million people live there, but wars are as fiercely fought in minds as in battlefields.

Israel attacked an oil refinery in South Tehran that day, and there were already concerns about the availability of fuel. My wife urged me to leave for the nearby city of Qom, even as I scrambled to check which land borders can we use if we had to make a quick exit. At this point, it seemed that the conflict would be stopped by the ‘responsible’ powers of the west soon, and this was just a precautionary move of ensuring we have the Visas ready in case we have to leave. I also didnt want to go to Qom knowing fully well the nuclear plants being bombed were close by - but it seems no one else in the world cared about contamination. I enquired with our travel agent about Azerbaijan, and then decided to go with the Altys visa app because they were cheaper. We already had plans and confirmed train tickets to go to Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city on Sunday, and I decided we must stick to this, but it also meant spending one more dreaded night in Tehran.

In Iran, which runs some of the oldest planes in the world due to western sanctions, flights are cheap but dreadful. It’s not comforting to know for example that the Douglas McDonnel model you are flying on is the oldest of its kind still flying. Making it worse is the fact that flights are often delayed, and getting to the airport in Traffic compounds the pain.

Trains on the other hand are a totally different experience. The five star trains in Iran for that matter, are some of the best in the world, a hotel on wheels that kids always look forward to. They are much in demand too, and I had failed to get a booking before the holidays, or else we would have left for Mashhad on Wednesday eve, the start of the long weekend. But as fate would have it, we could only manage to get tickets for Sunday, in a day time train. It was a 7:30 am departure, and due to constant bombings and air defense activations in Tehran and devastating news coming all across, I decided to leave as early as possible. We got up at 4 am, and I was looking for a Snapp by 5.

Snapp is like Uber, but unlike for Uber in India, most of the Snapp drivers are part timers, Iranians trying to make their livelihood. Snapp is their second job. In the face of crippling sanctions, many Iranians resort to driving for snapp part times for extra income. Snapp does more than 5 million rides a day and is considered a public utility. But on Sunday morning, finding a snapp was not easy, and fares were already 3 times the normal (or so it felt - legally there is a cap on Taxi fares so I am not sure). It took 5-10 minutes to find the 2 taxis we needed for our group (4 adults, 2 kids). I sent my wife in one with parents, and the kids travelled with me. Most of the Iranian cars are very old, and extremely fuel inefficient, but they are still on the road like the planes, partly because fuel is cheap, but mostly because of sanctions - the Government has banned import of foreign cars to save on foreign exchange.

When I get into a Snapp, especially on the front seat, I sometimes dread drivers who are too eager to strike a conversation. They start once they learn I am a foreigner, which they learn soon because even though my Farsi is now comprehensible, the accent gives it away. Topics of conversations range all the way from Bollywood to culture to politics and then how bad things are and then how much you make. The likes of if Amitabh Bacchan is still alive (long live AB), Jabar Singh (who is unfortunately dead), and how come Shahrukh Khan does not age, are the most common.

But not today, the mood was grim and the driver didn’t say a word. I tried to break the silence myself asking him an obviously stupid question about how the situation was in Tehran. Instead of replying, he pointed to the pillars of smoke rising - there were two major bombings the day before, one in the north Tehran where I lived, on some government building or fuel storage, and another on a refinery on the south.Thick, black smoke rose from both. This , as well as the deserted roads (Sunday is a working day in Iran), were stark reminders that war had come to Tehran. We reached the station early, as there was virtually no traffic, and the atmosphere outside of the train station was surreal too, as many people were trying to escape Tehran. It wasn’t very crowded and there was calm, but the mood was desolate.

After a mentally taxing wait of 2 hours, it was time to board the train. We were the only foreigners, at least in our coach, and we settled drown in our seats. 3 seats were vacant, for my sisters family, who were no longer with us as the airspaces were closed and flights cancelled. As the train started moving,the burning oil refinery, flames still coming out with thick black smoke was visible from the windows. Our 4 year old son, totally oblivious to the situation (ignorance is indeed a bliss sometimes), was asking us if there was an attack in Tehran, and if his school was also going to be bombed.