In November 1975, an ordinary afternoon on one of Tehran’s bustling streets turned into an unforgettable moment, frozen forever by the lens of photographer Jafar Daniali. The incident was deceptively simple in its origins: a conflict between a teenage street vendor and a passerby over the value of a five-rial coin. Yet the sudden escalation of the argument into a full-fledged violent confrontation revealed deeper tensions embedded in everyday urban life. When Ettelaat newspaper published the dramatic photo series on November 15, 1975, it struck a chord with the public. The images were shocking not because violence was rare but because Daniali’s photographs captured so starkly how quickly anger can explode from a trivial spark into a dangerous blaze.
The 1975 confrontation was one among thousands of street fights that occur every year in Iran—many over financial disputes so small they appear absurd in retrospect. But the deeper truth is far more complex. Anger, frustration, and the breakdown of emotional regulation often lie beneath the surface of such incidents. A stranger refusing to return a few rials in change, a driver blocking a parking space, a taxi passenger arguing over a fare—any of these everyday conflicts can erupt into aggression if governed not by reason, but by impulse.
