Iran's love for Indian films in general and Raj Kapoor in particular

Hindi cinema's excesses have occasionally given succour to Afghans

A Party in Hell (1956) by Samuel Khachikian — the Armenian-Iranian director of thrillers who is often compared, unimaginatively I am told, to Alfred Hitchcock — featured a heaven next door too. Whereas in hell Hitler and other evil men danced, Khachikian’s surrealist imagining of heaven included a serenely smiling Raj Kapoor. I haven’t seen the film. My friend, the London-based writer and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht, ardently narrated it to me once. In his utterance, the last name “Ka-pour” even sounded Iranian.

The Awara director was in fact a household name in Iran. Ardent narrations by his father are how Ehsan