Wajida Tabassum

Wajida Tabassum (16 March 1935 – 7 December 2011) was an Indian writer of fiction, verses and songs in the Urdu language. She wrote 27 books. Some of her stories have been made into movies and Indian television serials. Her controversial 1975 story titled "Utran" (translated as 'Cast-Offs' or 'Hand-Me Downs') was made into a popular soap opera on Indian television in 1988. "Utran" was reprinted in English translation as part of an anthology of 20 short stories titled Such Devoted Sisters in 1994, and from there was made into a movie in 1996 under the title Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, with a script by Mira Nair and Helena Kriel.

Biography Wajida Tabassum was born in Amravati, Maharashtra in 1935. She graduated from Osmania University with a degree in Urdu language. After graduation her family moved from Amravati to Hyderabad where she started writing stories in Urdu in the Dakhini dialect from 1940 in the backdrop of the aristocratic social life of Hyderabad. She married her cousin Ashfaq Ahmad in 1960; he was employed with Indian Railways. After his retirement he published all her books. They settled in Bombay and had five children, four sons and one daughter. Zar Zan Zamin (1989).