Akhtarul Iman

Pillar of the modern Urdu nazm — Sahitya Akademi laureate and the Filmfare-winning pen behind *Waqt*'s famous dialogues. Akhtar-ul-Iman (12 November 1915 – 9 March 1996), born at Qila Patthargarh near Najibabad in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district, was one of the pillars of the modern Urdu nazm. Raised in harsh circumstances — an orphan's upbringing in Delhi — he worked menial jobs while studying, graduated from the Anglo-Arabic (Zakir Husain) College in Delhi, and took his master's in Urdu from Aligarh Muslim University. After a spell as a staff artist at All India Radio, he moved to Bombay in 1945 and became one of Hindi cinema's most respected screenwriters: his dialogues shaped landmark B.R. Films productions including *Kanoon* (1960), *Dharmputra* (1961) and *Waqt* (1965), earning him the Filmfare Best Dialogue award twice (1963, 1966); the famous "glass-house" line of *Waqt* is his. As a poet he deliberately set the ghazal aside, choosing the nazm — in free, conversational verse — to speak of the modern individual's alienation, moral choice and philosophical humanism. His collection *Yadein* won the 1962 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu. He died in Mumbai on 9 March 1996.