Writer, director or scamster and failed spy? The travails of the father of Iranian cinema in India

Inspector Fernandes of the Bombay Police Criminal Investigation Department would have been bemused by the unusual object appended to the letter addressed to him. It was a ticket from a coin-operated weighing machine, presumably from the iconic Regal Cinema in Colaba.

The bearer of the ticket would have had little use for the pithy advice that appeared below his weight of 11 stone, 12 lbs, recorded on August 30 – he clearly followed his own judgment. Despite this, and sadly for him, his fate was sealed over the three monsoon months of 1946.

Perhaps he went to the movies that day, to momentarily take his mind off what was imminent; what he had dodged and defied for years. His letter, dated August 31, opened with an apology for failing to report to the inspector as required. He had, it appeared, decided to end his life. He would go on a hunger strike unto death at St Peter’s Armenian Church where he was put up, protesting his forced repatriation by the government of India to Iran, the country of his nationality.

The repatriation was illegal, he claimed; it was against the principles of the United Nations Organisation and he was a “friendly allied subject”; he faced...

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