Frustrating Search for Iranian Exile

Several months ago, Mehrdad Golshani received an urgent request from old friends in north Africa: Would he help them track down their 37-year-old son before his mother died of cancer?

Amin and Badri Bakhshandegi had not seen their son in nearly 20 years and the last they heard, he was living in Los Angeles.

Golshani met the Bakhshandegis years ago in South Africa during the apartheid era. Like him, they are Iranian exiles and followers of the Bahai faith.

Now living in a primitive home with no phone in the north African nation of Mauritania, the Bakhshandegis wrote to their friend in the United States asking for help.

Their luck had turned since they last saw him, they explained. They had lost most of their money, and Badri, who had undergone a double mastectomy, is dying of cancer.

Before she dies, she wants to see her son, Payam, one more time.

They have not seen him since the early 1980s, and they have not heard from him since the early ‘90s, when their other son, Shamom, was shot to death in South Africa.

Both Golshani and the Bakhshandegis had gone to South Africa, Golshani said, to teach about the unity of mankind, a central tenet of the Bahai faith.

In 1994, Shamom went to a Bahai center for prayer with several black Bahais. Shamom and two others were nonblack.

“They were separated from the blacks and they were shot by four black youths,” said Golshani, who has a picture of the grave where Shamom and the other Persian Bahais are buried. The four youths were convicted and are in prison, Golshani said.

Payam heard about his brother’s death at the time and called his parents from California to express his sorrow.

He promised to call again when he had a permanent home. He never called back.

The parents moved to Mauritania after Shamom’s death.

As exiles of Iran, the Bakhshandegi family scattered around the globe in search of education and citizenship. In the process, they lost track of one another.

Payam had moved to France to study at the Sorbonne, where he taught and earned French citizenship. Then he moved to Italy, next to Switzerland and finally to the United States. The last they heard, he had moved to Los Angeles.

For the past few months, Golshani--who lives in Woodland Hills and works for the Department of Defense--has searched for Payam, sending out chain letters on the Internet, combing local college campuses and posting notices at the Los Angeles Bahai Center.

Golshani estimates he has posted as many as 1,000 fliers throughout Los Angeles. One hangs in the window of a Persian bakery on Reseda Boulevard.

“Looking for Payam Bakhshandegi,” the photocopied sign reads. “Speaks four languages: Italian, French, English and Farsi. Taught at the Sorbonne, French citizen. Mother is ill. Last name may be different.”

“I’m looking everywhere,” Golshani said recently. “It is pretty consuming and draining. This is a family who are my friends. A human being who is sick with cancer. When her son died, she became ill. She is surviving, but I do not know how long.”

Golshani sends monthly dispatches to the Bakhshandegis in Mauritania with updates on his efforts. A letter from Los Angeles takes 15 days to reach them.

For all his efforts, Golshani has learned little.

He received a telephone call a couple of weeks ago from an Iranian woman in Boston who had read about the search on the Internet. She told Golshani a man named Payam had committed suicide a year ago in Boston. He turned out to be a different Payam.

Golshani himself met Payam only once, more than a decade ago. He remembers the man as an intellectual who preferred the company of books over people.

“He’s always reading something,” Golshani said. “If you and I are carrying on a normal conversation, he sees that as a waste of time. Most of the time he reads things, even at the dinner and breakfast table--he eats and reads.”

Golshani has contacted the French consulate in Los Angeles, but he could do little because he is not a family member. He has not contacted the police or FBI, he said, because Payam is a French citizen. He also fears Payam has changed his last name because it is too difficult for Americans to pronounce.

He acknowledged that the chances of finding Payam are slim, but he will not give up.

“In this struggle, I think I am the only one who is trying to find this person,” he said. “I try to knock on every door I can and seek him. This is a personal effort. I hope that I find him.”

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To contact Golshani about Payam Bakhshandegi’s whereabouts call (213) 452-3383.