Rajinder Singh Bedi

Rajinder Singh Bedi Biography

Rajinder Singh Bedi was a progressive Urdu writer, playwright and a Hindi film maker. He was known as a director as well as scriptwriter. He has been associated with legendary directors of Hindi cinema, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Bimal Roy as a scriptwriter and dialogue writer. He wrote the dialogues of Hindi classics like Abhimaan, Anupama and Satyakam and Madhumathi. As a film director, Dastak and Phagun released during early 1970’s are his most noted works. Film Dastak was based on his Urdu play, Nakl-i-Makaani. Nawab Sahib (1978) and Aankhin Dekhi (1978) are his other directed movies. Bedi is considered one of the greatest 20th century progressive writers of Urdu fiction and often counted after the prominent Urdu fiction writer, after Saadat Hasan Manto.

Rajinder Singh Bedi was born near Sialkot of present day Pakistan in 1915. His childhood days were spent at Lahore. He received education in Urdu and has never gone to college. After Partition his other family members settled in Fazilka. His first published short story was "Maharani ka Tohfa" which won best Short Story of the Year, given by Adabi Dunya, an Urdu magazine. His first collection of short stories, Daan-O-Daam was published in 1940. He started his career working as a clerk at Lahore Post Office in 1933. In 1941, he joined Urdu section of AIR at Lahore where he wrote plays like Khawaja Sara and Nakl-i-Makaani. In 1943, he joined Maheshwari Films. But later he returned to AIR. By the time of partition, he has already published several books.

His Urdu novel, Ek Chadar Maili Si, received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1965. He was active in writing for more than 50 years and has published 72 short stories, mostly in Urdu. "Garm Kot" and "Lajvanti" are regarded as his masterpieces. After India partition, he moved to India and became active in film industry. As a dialogue writer, 1949 film Badi Bahen was his first movie followed by Daag in 1952.

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Updated: March 14, 2014