trodden and the middle class. It was the scripts which gave Raj Kapoor the image of a common man or Aam Adami through his films like Jagte Raho, Awaara, Shri 420, Mera Naam Joker etc. He wrote the screenplay for Neecha Nagar, a film which became the first film to win the Palme d’ Or (Golden Palm) at Cannes Film Festival.

Besides writing scripts and screenplays Abbas wrote critical books on Indian Cinema. His book Mad, Mad, Mad World of Indian Films and Bombay, my Bombay are collection of his small essays about Indian Cinema and the personalities which were very important in the formative years of Indian Cinema. How Films Are Made (1999) is another book on Film making published by National Book Trust, New Delhi. In theintroduction to his book Mad, Mad, Mad world of Indian Films, Abbas made a very perceptive remark about the contradiction of the film world:

Madness is part of this art industry – its fantabulous star- prices, it’s larger – than – life figures of success and its grimmer – than death failures. Money makes the film, but money alone can not act, money alone can not adjust the lens that bends beauty and glamour to the famous and glamorous star – faces. Money is everything, but money is nothing!

(Introduction, Mad, Mad, Mad world of Indian Films)

Among his other non – fiction writings are his famous autobiography I Am Not An Island and two plays. One play Barrister At Law is based on early life of Mahatma Gandhi. The other