• Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, the director of films such as Dharti ke Lal (1946, famed as India’s first social-realist film) and Saat Hindustani (1969, which introduced Amitabh Bachchan to Bollywood), was also a member of the Progressive Writers’ Association, a film journalist and a writer of a number of short stories in the celluloid world of Bombay.
  • Sone Chandi ke Buth (literally, “Idols of Gold and Silver”) is the English translation of his Urdu book by Syeda Hameed and Sukhpreet Kahlon.
  • The book is divided into three sections: short observations on famous film personalities (“Funn aur Funkaar”), short stories (“Kahaaniyaan”), and a series of articles on various aspects of Indian cinema.
  • Abbas, who was active in the Hindi film industry from 1935 until his death in 1987, was witness to many of the sweeping technological and ideological changes in Hindi cinema.
  • His is a distinct critical voice that flows easily between personal reminiscences and sharp critiques
  • His stories are peopled with characters from different rungs in the celluloid ladder—what he called the caste system of the entertainment world.
  • They carry a strong indictment of an industry too concerned with superficialities and given over to capitalist enterprises.
  • Abbas was writing when film journalism was almost unheard of, and in the light of this, the critical eye with which he views the Bombay film industry and film journalism itself is even more striking.