By Ali Peter John

And as I sit in one of those favourite Irani restaurants, a restaurant where steaming hot tea with a taste found no where else in Bombay and ‘Khaari’ biscuits (I make it a point to sit in this restaurant today just to remember the times me and Abbas spent there thinking and talking of the problems of the country and its people whom we love with a sense of sheer and powerful passion.

I carry with me a letter written by one of the greatest fans of Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Shahabuddin Mohammed Ismail. The tea, thirty years later, still tastes the same as I sip it and read what Ismail has to say about Abbas in a note written in 1995. It tries to sum-up the life work and times of Abbas. Writes Ismail : The name Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was enough for me to see his films. I have seen almost all his films such as Munna (a songless film), Pardesi (an Indo-Soviet production), Dr. Kotnis (a biographical), Dharti Ke Lal (a film on the man-made famine in Bengal), Shahar Aur Sapna (a film about the lives of the downtrodden in city like Bombay, a film which went on to win the President’s Gold Medal), to name just a few. His films were liked by the masses as much as the classes. He was originally a film critic. Since some stupid films were the main targeted of his criticism, one of the producers challenged him by saying : "its easy to criticise,but let’s see you writing a film story". Being a daring young man Abbas Sahab accepted the challenge. He wrote the script for a film called Naya Sansaar for S Mukerji. Naya Sansaar won the Bengali Film Journalist Association Award for the best story and screenplay and celebrated silver jubilee at several centres all over the country. (later when Abbas had to accept another challenge and produce his own films he named his banner, Naya Sansaar). Then Abbas saw some of the films based on his stories made by other filmmakers and he could not believe any of them was written by him.

One of the producers made a taunt at Abbas Sahab when he said writing a story is easy but it is a director who decides to present it on the screen. If you don’t like the way we make your stories into films, you better to start directing your own". This was another challenge and Abbas Sahab who always loved accepting challenges accepted this challenge too. He produced and directed "Dharti Ke Lal" which created a stir all over the country and he was inspired to start a movement with a number of his like-minded friends and well-wishers who fought amidst all kinds of problems till India won Independence and even after that. From Dharti Ke Lal to Do Boond Pani he pursued several themes in all his films during his three decades of filmmaking. Shahar Aur Sapna was his most successful film both financially and critically. It won several awards all over the country and its crowning glory was the award it won at the prestigious Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

He was not only a filmmaker who made a strong impact with every film he made but a full-blooded journalist and writer of repute. A writer who specialised in writing biographies, novels, short stories, articles, and reviews. He was in short master of the pen. It is a well-known fact that the readers of RK Karanjia’s Blitz read his column "The Last Page" and the front page and all the other pages. His column was about life. It made people aware of what was going around them in the world. It made his readers aware of themselves, of their conscience and the need for their dedication to build a great India, his greatest dream. Whether Abbas belongs to films or journalism, it didn’t matter to him as long as what he wanted to communicate to his people succeeded. He loved calling himself "Abba Ass" (father of donkeys) who did what ever he did only by the order of his feelings.

"I write as I feel, I make films as I feel. I may fail or succeed but I can not let down my feelings. Abbas received over a hundred letters a day or more from all over the country and even abroad. He always looked at the pile of letter the postman brought with lot of anguish. He was always keen to know what all those letters meant for him but how could he do justice to so many letters? It was difficult simply difficult both physically and mentally. He felt sorry for all those who took time of to write letters expressing all kinds of feelings because they had faith and trust in him. Abbas had very few regrets in life but his greatest regret was his not being able to answer each of his fans and admirers individually. "If there is a God", he said "even He would be able to understand my dilemma and there were some letters which he answered which changed the lives of people like the letter he wrote to me the first time, a letter chosen from among the hundreds of letters which the postman just brought in a sack and flung into his little sitting room.