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Newspaper nurtures art
SUGANTHY KRISHNAMACHARI
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Calligraphy is what makes the Urdu daily, The Musalman, stand apart.
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Photos: S.R.Raghunathan
REPORTING AESTHETICALLY: Syed Fazlullah, editor, The Musalman
Tucked away in a narrow by lane off Triplicane High Road, the nondescript building doesn’t look like a newspaper office from the outside. It looks even less like one inside, where Shabana, Khurshid and Rehman Hussaini are ‘writing’
the day’s newspaper. They are calligraphers, who wield their pens to transform news into art, for the Urdu newspaper The Musalman.
The paper was founded by Syed Azmatullah Sahib in 1927, and was inaugurated by Dr. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, president of the Indian National Congress, Madras Session.
Editor for 40 years
Many Urdu newspapers have switched over to computers, but the editor of The Musalman, Syed Fazlullah, is determined not to make the transition. He has been its editor for 40 years, and is at the office 12 hours a day. The three calligraphers or ‘katibs,’ as they are known, are paid Rs.60 a day. The two women calligraphers studied the art at the Murtuza Oriental School, on Big Street, Triplicane. The National Council for the Promotion of Urdu provides funds to various ‘Anjumans’ to train those interested in Urdu calligraphy. The two women at The Musalman were beneficiaries of this programme. As for Rehman Hussaini, he is a self-taught artist.
The output under scrutiny
What is calligraphy? Simply put, it is the art of beautiful writing. And as the ‘katibs’ wield their pens, you see why Urdu calligraphy is beautiful. A curl, a flourish, a stroke, and a work of art unfolds before your eyes — symmetrical and graceful.
The handwritten broadsheets are converted to a negative and printed. “This printing press is a Miller machine that we bought 40 years ago,” says Fazlullah. The paper has a total circulation of 21000, with a few subscribers in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore. It is an eveninger that reaches other cities the next morning and is priced at Paise75 an issue.
Calligraphy is adopted even in advertisements. While they get ads from the Railways and ICF, they get none from the State Government. “Urdu newspapers in other States get ads from the government. It would be a great help if we did too,” says the editor.
Making deft strokes.
The chief reporter, Chinnaswamy Balasubramaniam who has been with the paper for the past 15 years says, “We have covered the election campaigns of all political parties.” He points out that it is wrong to think that Urdu belongs to one community alone. “It belongs to all of us.”
Fazlullah interjects with an interesting anecdote. Once during a press conference, two journalists, who had some questions for Mrs. Gandhi. The correspondent from The Hindu was a Muslim while the one from The Musalman was a Hindu, called Bhatnagar. Delighted, Mrs. Gandhi said this was how she wanted India to be, truly secular.
Urdu is not just a language of beautiful poetry. As Dr.Zakir Hussain said, it is the language of the common people … the language of love and tolerance. It is the common heritage of the Indian sub continent, and Urdu calligraphy is an art that should be nurtured.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
