Voices from Iran: Iranian expatriates in Tamil Nadu reflect on protests at home; Longing for peace amid cultural connections

“I come from a beautiful city, known for its poetry, roses and grape wine - Chiraz,” says Iran national Nasrin Karimi. Nasrin fled the country to pursue her higher studies in Chennai during the Iraq war in the late 1970s but never returned. “Most aspiring Iranian youngsters moved to Europe or the US, but I decided to stay back in India. It felt like home,” she says.Today, “chef Nasrin” is among the small Iranian community — barely a dozen families — that has made Tamil Nadu and Puducherry their home. Nasrin lives with her brother Dariush on ECR and has not been to Iran in 20 years. Though she misses the seasons in Iran, she has her “family” here, her network of friends and clients, for whom she serves up Persian food (customised to the Indian palate).The community is anxious about the ongoing protests and violence in Iran. “Masked gunmen are killing people indiscriminately in Iran,” says Nasrin. “During the Iraq war, maybe 10,000 were killed but now at least 20,000 have been massacred in two days. There is no internet and I can’t reach my family.” For Anitha Kamali, an Aurovillian who arrived in 2023 from Zahedan in Iran’s Balochistan region with a return ticket, the decision to stay back was shaped by identity as much as circumstance. “I cancelled my return ticket. My mother is Balochi and my father a Parsi, and he always encouraged me to discover India,” she says.Abbas arrived in Chennai in 1981 from Isfahan in Iran to do his BSc and later PhD at Loyola college, but married a Tamilian and settled here. “I remember a time when I could reach Loyola in 10 minutes from my home in Besant Nagar, by bike,” says the 70-year-old. Abbas and wife Geetha were in Iran for decades and travel to Iran often. “At home, I eat less spicy version of Indian foods like rasam and sambar.”All of them say there are “quite a few similarities in the cultures of both countries” and “people from India have major misconceptions about Iran and Iranians”.“Our identity”, says Anitha, “is much more than about being Muslim, we have our films, our food, our language and much more. At least 40% of Hindi, Urdu, Baluchi and Persian are common words.”While Iranian food is much less spicy than Indian, most of them are familiar with Indian food owing to the presence of the Punjabi community in Iran.“There was an exodus of Punjabis to Iran in the early 1900s, who later established gurudwaras and businesses and married local Muslims,” says Anitha.While Indians consider guests as god (atithi devo bhava), Iranians consider them as “gifts from god”, according to Nasrin. One of the most popular dishes on Nasrin’s menu is the mutton koobideh, a minced meat kabab unique to Iran. “North Indians love it, but south Indians prefer chicken berry pulao, a spicy version of it,” she says. “Nouroz or the Iranian new year – the beginning of spring – is celebrated with sweets and dry fruits.”“The govt and public have been in ideological conflict with each other for decades and we hope there will be peace soon,” says Nasrin.