Iran is full of surprises. Even before Mahan Airways flight begins its descent towards the massive arid landscape that constitutes most of Iran, the in-flight announcement reminds you - the woman traveler - to cover your head in accordance with the country's chosen Islamic laws. But that's not the surprise. It is what comes after. As you march through the aerobridge into the arrival hall, you encounter as many women officials as men at the immigration and customs counters. You step out blinking in the bright desert sun, and there are more women everywhere - in the taxi queues, in the exchange counters, on the roads, in groups and alone. In fact, you encounter many more women in public spaces in Iran than you do in most other countries, including Western capitals.

Haleh has come to pick me up. I had never met her, never even knew her name, and am not even sure if she's from the conference secretariat or somewhere else. I am in Iran for an energy conference. But Haleh holds a placard and waits patiently for me. But then I spot one more placard bearing my name, and that's when I realise she's not the one from the conference secretariat. It takes me only a few seconds to decide where my loyalties lie. I follow Haleh who introduces herself as the wife of a professor in Teheran University whom I had emailed about my itinerary. I didn't know him either, but got his contact through a friend in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

We both cruise along Teheran's wide tree-lined avenues choc-a-bloc with swishing and speeding cars. Haleh speaks slowly, but clearly. She's more fluent in Italian and French. We keep driving endlessly through fashionable suburbs and eventually reach her home with its ultra-modern security system. Once inside her small but lovely apartment, she takes off her chador to reveal her very fashionable outfit and her gold-tinted hair. She has strained her culinary knowledge to rustle up a vegetarian meal for me, of boiled beans and long grain rice sprinkled with saffron.

Later, both of us take a tour of the local market. The first thing that strikes you is the number of stores that stock women's apparel, cosmetics, jewellery, etc. These far outnumber anything else in Teheran's bazaars. I wonder why women would invest so much in their appearance when none of it can be seen by anyone other than their own family or close circle of friends and that too behind closed doors. But maybe precisely for that reason, Iranian women dress up. It is perhaps their way of keeping their femininity alive even when wrapped in yards of black taffeta. In one shop window advertising hair colour, all the faces are stickered, revealing gorgeous locks in various hues. It is a neat arrangement, keeping the identities of the models concealed since their products demand that they unveil.

And then, I start noticing the shoppers' chadors in greater detail. There are basically two kinds of Iranian chadors. One is voluminous, shapeless, and covers you entirely from head to toe. It is often made of heavy material and comes in numerous folds. Then there is just yards of black cloth. There are many women who have mastered the art of wrapping themselves perfectly in several yards of unstitched cloth. Usually, one end of it is clenched between their teeth, leaving both their hands free, but behind the veil to hold their shopping. The more fashionable ones, however, wear lovely knee-length coats, often made of black leather. Their patent leather high-heeled boots are perfectly matched. The cut of the coat is stylish and sets off their slim waistline. Their handbags reveal their class, I suppose. They could range from Yves Saint Laurent to Gucci to the latest European fashion. Suddenly, I am glad I didn't wear the sandalwood colour cheap chador I bought in Nizamuddin expressly for my Iranian journey. I am in salwar kameez with a colourful headscarf, loudly proclaiming my foreign origin.

This was my third visit to Teheran in the last fifteen months. The last two times, I traveled through Iran, visiting Shiraz, Persepolis, Esfahan and Yazd. One thing that struck me from all these trips was the predominance of women in every profession, especially in the academia. In Shiraz, I visited an Iranian friend working at Shiraz University. She lives alone with her niece, a college student, and she assured me that this was not unusual. We shopped and cooked together, I visited her office and got acquainted with her students, a majority of whom were young girls. There was much camaraderie, jokes and laughter, just like in our own campuses. Boys and girls mingled freely, pulled each other's legs, and seemed to be having loads of fun. It was as though all the shibboleths and shackles suddenly disappeared revealing an open society, more sinned against than sinning. And after dinner, my friend phoned for a taxi. It must have been past midnight. When the cab arrived, lo and behold, it was a woman driver, elegantly wrapped in a silken chador, smelling mildly of perfume and sporting a cell phone around her neck. And here in Delhi, only now we're introducing women taxi drivers, and that makes a splash.

Why then does Iran sport this anachronistic relationship with religion? Do Iranians feel comfortable with their religious crown of thorns? I get the impression they do not. In fact, the crown seems to sit rather lightly on them, put there by a group of mullahs when they were not looking. So when I confront my friends from the university as to why they put up with this journey back on the religious time-machine, all they can do is to shrug and admit this is far better than what it was like to live in Shah's Iran. Yes, the ordinary Iranian is not nostalgic, does not wish to return to a Shahesque Iran where, in the name of freedom, the country was looted, plundered and divested of its wealth by a profligate and wayward ruler. The decade-long Iran-Iraq war to which many middle-class homes lost their young men is still fresh in their minds. In those days, they had compulsory military service and you could escape it only if you were an outstanding student. The past was not paradise for them to hark back to nostalgically. In fact, almost every Iranian I met confirmed that their present is far better than their past, even if it meant women suffocating in a black tent called chador.

The last time I was in Teheran in March for another conference, we were taken to meet Mohammed Khatami, the president, in his lavish palace. We went through several layers of security. An American lady who was in our group had been asked to deposit her handbag. She pulled out the passport and handed it to our limousine driver for safekeeping. Next, she drew out a wad of greenbacks, bent down, took off her right shoe, stuffed the notes inside, and wore the shoe back. After making us wait for about half an hour in the hall, sundry mullahs appeared and said an elaborate prayer. Finally, Khatami himself made a grand entrance in his long grand robe, his silken turban and three-day-old stubble. Soft spoken and given to fluid movements, his speech was alternately cajoling and threatening - translated for us incognito and reaching us through our headsets. It was a primer on international relations with an Iranian perspective.

Through my audience with Khatami, and through my numerous travels in Iran, my head scarf was more token than real, revealing my substantial grey hair, often unraveling altogether, but never once was I told to cover up. Never once was I made to feel embarrassed. I could always approach any male passerby or stranger for directions or help without fear of being misunderstood or rebuffed. And every time I told any Iranian my nationality, I was sure to get a big smile, a warm greeting, which was almost wistful. And that remained unchanged even this time, when I visited after India's unexpected vote in the IAEA. Iranians seem to have the maturity to separate the state from its citizens, and not hold the citizens responsible for what the state does.