Iranian interlude: Notes from a recent visit to the embattled country

After a recent visit to the embattled country, Ranjita Ganesan writes about the people and places that stand to suffer

At the risk of sounding like that foreign journalist writing on West Asia about whom Karl Sharro has amply warned everyone, I start this piece with something a cab driver said last November while taking me to the airport in Tehran. “You are leaving at the right time.” He was just referring to the weather, though. The only thing escalating in the semi-arid capital city then was winter, the temperature hovered a few degrees Celsius above zero. The first powdery bits of snow had fallen and begun to underline his windshield. 

A hint of looming unrest was sensed the night