Khwaja Ahmad Abbas

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was also well-known as K. A. Abbas. Abbas was an Indian screenwriter, film director and novelist. He had also served as a Hindi, Urdu, English journalist. He has widely contributed to the most popular Hindi movies like Do Boond Pani, Saat Hindustani, Shehar Aur Sapna, Pardesi His movie were widely appreciated by everyone and hence he was honoured with the National Film Award for the Best Feature Film on National Integration, His movies were even nominated at the Cannes Film Festival.

He is measured as one of the most significant personalities whose movies were appreciated worldwide and he was the one who motivated everyone to showcase their special talent on an international platform. He used to write them for the column Last Page one of the longest and most-read columns featured in the Bombay Chronicle. After the paper shut down, he moved into Blitz.

In 1969 he was privileged with the Padma Shri, by Government of India for his good work in the field of journalism. Born in Haryana, he was born into a house where everyone was rich in terms of knowledge. Khwaja Gulam Abbas, his grandfather served as a chief at the Rebellion movement from 1857. His father, Ghulam-Us-Sibtain is a master degree holder from the Aligarh Muslim University. Abbas's primary education was done from Panipat where he thought about the Quran and the Arabic language.

In 1933 he did his graduation in B.A. with English Literature as the main subject, after which he completed LL.B. Degree from the Aligarh Muslim University. Abbas started his career as a journalist and joined a New Delhi paper National Call. During his LLB study, he used to write in the university students weekly Aligarh Opinion, which is regarded as the country’s first week at the time of the pre-independence period. After finishing his graduation in 1935 he joined the Bombay Chronicle.

During his work in the paper, he even worked as a film critic, but after a period of time the person who was encouraged by giving reviews died and hence Abbas was appointed as the editor of the film division. He even used to write the column Last Page which is termed as one of the longest and most-read columns for the paper. It was during this time that he started writing stories for directors. At that time two movies of him were liked and picturized by famous directors like V. Shantaram for Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani and Neecha Nagar by Chetan Anand.

He made his first step in direction with Dharti Ke Lal, a Bengali movie in 1945. The movie was appreciated by the Indian People's Theatre Association. He even founded a production company named Naya Sansar which produced films that were based on social issues like the Shehar Aur Sapna, Saat Hindustani, Anhonee, Munna, Rahi. He was a great expert in language and has written more than 74 books in various languages like Hindi, Urdu, and English.

His famous work includes Inquilab, a fictional book based on Communal violence. The book was read by many and it impressed many scholars. The book was further translated into Arabic, Russian, French, Italian, and German. He has written scripts for famous movies like Henna, the super-hit and legendary Mera Naam Joker Story Soon >> Read More... , Awaara, Bobby and Shri 420. In 1997 an autobiography of him was released in the mane of Am Not an Island: An Experiment in Autobiography, the book was again published in 2010.