Two-day celebrations will be held at Raj Bhavan here on May 10 and 11 to mark the birth centenary of renowned writer, journalist and film maker Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. Governor Dr. Aziz Qureshi will be the chief guest at this event being organised by the KA Abbas Centenary Celebrations Committee. The year 2014 is being celebrated as his centenary year.
The committee has already held events at Delhi, Hyderabad and Aligarh. Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was born on June 7, 1914. He was a multi-dimensional personality - a well-known film director, a novelist, a screenplay writer and a journalist in the Urdu, Hindi and English languages. He made important films like Saat Hindustani and Do Boond Pani, both of which won the national film award for the best feature film on national integration. He was very famous as a journalist too. His column 'last Page', holds the distinction of being one of the longest-running columns in the history of Indian journalism.
Abbas was a prolific writer, and wrote over 73 books in English, Hindi and Urdu. Abbas was considered a leading light of the Urdu short story. His best known fictional work remains Inquilab, which made him a household name in Indian literature.
Remembering him in his centenary year gives us the opportunity to look back at all the great work done by Abbas.
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was born in June 1914. He was a multi-dimensional personality - a well-known film director, a novelist, a screenplay writer and a journalist in the Urdu, Hindi and English languages. He made important films like Saat Hindustani and Do Boond Pani, both of which won the national film award for the best feature film on national integration. His film Shahr aur Sapna won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 1963. As a screenplay writer, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas is considered one of pioneers of Indian parallel or neo-realistic cinema, having penned films like Neecha Nagar, Jagte Raho, Dharti ke lal, Awara and Naya Sansar. He wrote the best of Raj Kapoor's films including Awaara, Shri 420, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and Henna.
In order to execute his socialist vision on celluloid, he laid down the foundation of his own production company under whose banner he wrote, directed and produced memorable films like Shehar, Chaar Dil Char Rahain, Anhoni and Saat Hindustani. His films have won national and international awards at Cannes, Santa Barbra and Karlovy Vary Film Festivals.
He was very famous as a journalist too. His column 'last Page', holds the distinction of being one of the longest-running columns in the history of Indian journalism. The column began in 1935, in Bombay Chronicle and moved to the Blitz after the Chronicle's closure, where it continued until his death in 1987. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1969.
Abbas was born in Panipat. His father was the celebrated Urdu poet, Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali, a student of the great Mirza Ghalib. His grandfather Khwaja Gulam Abbas was one of the chief rebels of the 1857 rebellion. He had his early education till Class 7 in Panipat.
Abbas completed his matriculation at the age of fifteen. He did his B.A. with English literature in 1933 and ll.B. in 1935 from Aligarh Muslim University.
Abbas began his career as a journalist, when he joined 'National Call', a Delhi-based paper after finishing his B.A. After completing his education at AMU, he joined Bombay Chronicle in 1935. He occasionally served a film critic, but after the film critic of the paper died, he was made the editor of the film section.
He entered films as a part-time publicist for Bombay Talkies in 1936. While at the Bombay Chronicle, he started a weekly column called 'last Page', which he continued when he joined the Blitz magazine. "The last Page", (titled 'Azad Kalam' in the Urdu edition), thus became the longest-running political column in India's history.
In 1945, he made his directorial debut with Dharti ke lal, a film based on the Bengal Famine of 1943 for the Indian People's Theatre Association. In 1951, he founded his own production company called Naya Sansar, which consistently produced films that were socially relevant.
Many of his works were translated into many Indian, and foreign languages, like Russian, German, Italian, French and Arabic.
A true son of the soil he upheld his ideals of secularism, socialism and nationalism throughout his life. He remained a champion of the poor and fought for their cause, showcasing their dreams, aspirations, frustrations, suppression and exploitation, in his writings and films; A staunch believer in secularism, he abhorred obscurantism, communalism and left no stone unturned in exposing this malaise of our society. His autobiography, I Am not an Island: An Experiment in Autobiography, was first published in 1977 and later released in 2010.