Archive for June, 2014

Khwaja Ahmed Abbas was essentially a ‘Communicator’, the identity he chose for himself. While communicating for more than fifty years he chose different forms of writing including journalism, novel, short-story, cinema and autobiography. Much critical attention has been drawn towards his contribution to Indian Cinema, a little to his world of fiction including his novels and collections of short stories but the genre which kept him engaged and fulfilled his urge for communication most – journalistic writing, did not get the proper critical attention it deserved.

Abbas began his career as a journalist when he joined the National Call, a New Delhi based paper after finishing his B.A. Later while studying Law in Aligarh Muslim University in 1943, he started Aligarh Opinion, India’s first University Weeklyduring the pre – independence period.

Abbas’s father wanted him to become a lawyer but he was more interested in journalism. So, on a stipend of a small amount he reached Bombay and joined The Bombay Chronicle in 1935.While at Bombay Chronicle, he started writing a column called “Last Page”. When he shifted to The Blitz weekly, he carried the column with him and continued writing this column till 1987. It was published simultaneously in Urdu and Hindi as “Azad Kalam”. Thus, it became the longest – running political column (1935 – 87) in Indian Journalism.

Besides the column Abbas wrote several works in prose which border on diary, biography, autobiography, travelogue, screenplay, interviews and political commentary. In his case it becomes really difficult to classify a particular work in