Abid Surti

Writings

Surti has written short stories, novels, plays, children's books and travelogues. Several of his books have been translated into regional languages. He has also been writing for Hindi and Gujarati newspapers and magazines for over 40 years and received a National Award for his short-story collection Teesri Aankh in 1993. He became an author by accident. When his first love broke down due to family pressure, the teenaged Aabid had no one to confide in – so he began putting his story on paper. The story was published in Gujarati in 1965 as Tootela Farishta (Fallen angels) and proved to be an unexpected success.

He has written more than 80 books, including 45 novels, 10 short story collections and 7 plays.

The autobiographical novel Musalman was an account of his childhood in the poverty-ridden Dongri area of Mumbai. His latest novel, Sufi, describes the parallel lives of two friends: the author himself and a man called Iqbal Rupani, who rose to become the kingpin of the Mumbai underworld in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1975, his fictional version based on the Devil's Bible, entitled The Black Book, created a nationwide controversy. Even amidst critical acclaim, it was translated into seven languages and voted Book of the Year in Kannada. He earned the nickname the "Salman Rushdie of India" after his Black Book was published. He has together with his son Aalif Surti and Chandrika Vyas, Rima Kashyap also penned a controversial and hard-hitting novel called In Name of Rama inspired by a true incident during the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

In 2007, he was awarded the Hindi Sahitya Sanstha Award by the Uttar Pradesh government, and was given an award by the Gujarat government for his children's literary work Rangat. Among his other novels are Canal and Daagh. He has also worked as a television and film script-writer. He was the editor of the Gujarati annual magazine Dayaro for many years.

Recently, he has sued the makers of the Bollywood film Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge, which he says used his Gujarati novel Bauter Varas No Babo, published in 1976 and later translated into Hindi as Bahatar Saal Ka Baccha.

He has written graphic children's novels in Hindi, including Buddh kyun muskuraye 2500 saal baad (Why did the Buddha smile after 2500 years). He has also written satirical gazal with common English words.

Works

Gujarati

Hindi Collections

Novels

Stories

Travel

Satire

Plays

English

Novels

Plays

Paintings

Surti has been acclaimed as a painter, who has been credited to have used creative and original techniques to paint with oil and water colours. His using of acrylic colours applied to Italian art paper are also said to be indeed out of this world. An accomplished painter, he has held 16 exhibitions in India and abroad. In his early years, he invented an innovative technique called "mirror collage" which won critical acclaim in Japan. In 1971, the Indian government commissioned a short film to showcase his creative work.

Cartoons and comic-books

The first cartoon characters he created were in 1952–53 for a Gujarati magazine Ramakadu. It consisted of a comic feature of four pages in colour with three prominent characters – a boy, a girl and a monkey, entitled Rang Lakhudi. As a cartoonist, he later created the lovable simpleton Dhabbuji. The highly original and popular cartoon strip has been one of the longest-running comic strips in India, running without a break for over 30 years. It was the weekly comic strip that first appeared in famous Hindi magazine Dharmyug. He also created another popular comic book character, Bahadur, which achieved a large fan following, when the comics started to be published in Indrajal Comics from 1978. He also created other comic book characters like Inspector Azad, Inspector Vikram and a lady character named Shuja. The cartoon Dhabbuji and comics of Bahadur, Inspector Azad, Inspector Vikram and Shuja were all also published in English. Raj Kapoor once wanted to make a film based on Inspector Azad, such was the popularity of his comic strips. Further, his famous comic strips Doctor Chinchoo Ke Chamatkar, which was published in the Hindi magazine Parag from 1963 to 1965 is being serialised by the National Book Trust as Doctor Chinchoo Ke Kaarnamein.

Personal life and family

Abid Surti was born in a Muslim family on 5 May 1935 at Vavera near Rajula city, Gujarat, India to Gulam-hussain and Sakina Begum. In his childhood at age of 5, he almost got carried away by flood in Tapti river near Surat. The family later shifted to Bombay and he spent his childhood in Dongri area of Mumbai. His father was follower of Sufism His mother tongue is, however, Gujarati, as his parents belonged to Surat city of Gujarat, India or to say he is a Gujarati Muslim. That is presumably why he uses Surati as his pseudonym and surname. He joined the J. J. School of Art in 1954 and obtained a Diploma in Arts. He was greatly influenced by the writings of 20th-century Bengali novelist, Shard Babu. Besides being a writer in Hindi and Gujarati, he is also an expert in Urdu. He started his career as a free-lancer. In 1965, married Masooma Begum; they have two sons from this marriage. The director named Pramod Peti has made a documentary on the life of Abid Surti.