Born into the filmmaking Wadia family, he inherited the production company Wadia Movietone which is known for the Fearless Nadia movies which are one of their kind in the superwoman genre when the other movies of their time usually portrayed women in submissive roles. Wadia is also known for his documentary on Nadia, Fearless: The Hunterwali Story. Nicknamed as "The Turk" of the Indian Independent cinema, Riyad"s films are still being referred to in many books about Bollywood, be it gay themes in Indian Cinema, or the ones about JBH Wadia. His first documentary, Fearless: The Hunterwali Story, which is based on the life of Nadia Wadia, got screened at over 50 international film festivals, such as The Berlin International Film Festival (1994) and The London Film Festival (1993). The short film, BomGay, with shooting locations such as the gay cruising spots of Victoria Terminus urinals and the Bombay local tracks along which people defecate, was described as "part Bollywood, part Genet". The film explored the underground gay subculture of Bombay and marked the entry of queer themes into Indian Cinema. The film had a limited release in India, thanks to its explicit content. lieutenant got screened in a number of international film festivals and finds mention in the research works on the history of queer themes in Indian Cinema as the first queer themed film from India. Riyad tested positive for Human Immunodeficiency Virus in 1995. Though he was quite capable of affording the then expensive Human Immunodeficiency Virus medication, he refused to be on any kind of dosage. He left India shortly after the production of BomGay, supporting himself with petty jobs in New York and writing an article or two for The New Indian Express. Things got difficult post 9/11, with not much jobs available, forcing him to get back to Bombay. Riyad was lost to stomach tuberculosis on 30 November 2003, in Bombay. He was then in the process of generating funds for his supposed first full-length film (unfinished), Naked Rain, based on R. Raj Rao"s novel, Boyfriend. "He made a very important contribution to the gay cause and was one of the central figures to begin the broad-basing of the gay movement in India," says gay activist Ashok Row Kavi on Riyad.