Poets

Akhtar ul Iman (Urdu: اختر الایمان) was a noted Urdu poet and screenwriter in Hindi cinema, who had major influence on modern Urdu nazm.

He won the Filmfare Award for Best Dialogue in 1963 for Dharmputra and 1966 for Waqt. He was awarded the 1962 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu, for his Poetry Collection, Yadein (Memories), by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.

Early life and Education

Born in Qila, Najibabad, in the Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh in 1915.
His initial education happened at Bijnor, where he came in contact with Khurshid ul Islam, poet and scholar, who taught at Aligarh Muslim University, and developed a long association with Ralph Russell), he graduated from the Anglo-Arabic College (Zakir Husain College), Delhi.

Career

After graduating from Delhi University, he worked in Civil Supplies Department and All India Radio at Delhi. From 1945 after he moved to Mumbai (then Bombay), he started working for Hindi cinema as a script writer.

His poetry is highly individualistic and innovative. He stands apart from other poets of his time in his themes, style, language. He preferred nazm over more popular ghazal as a mean of poetic expression. Akhtar ul Iman's language is "coarse and unpoetic". He uses 'coarse" and mundane poetic expressions to make his message effective and realistic. His poetry strives to find out a balance between the conflicting or extreme choices faced by man. He chose free verse for his nazms ..