AUTHOR
As an author his output has been prolific, his oeuvre spanning fiction as well as non-fiction, travelogue as well as children’s literature. He has written around 80 books till date, which have been translated into almost every Indian language.
Aabid Surti became an author by accident. When his first love broke due to family pressure, the teenaged Aabid had no one to confide in – so he began putting his story on paper. The story was published in Gujarati in 1965 as ' Tootela Farishta ' (Fallen Angels) and proved to be an unexpected success.
This led to a demand for more books, which ended as a prolific output of more than 80 books including 45 novels, 10 short story collections and 7 plays!
In 1975, his fictional version of the Devil’s Bible titled ‘The Black Book’ created a nationwide controversy, even amidst critical acclaim. It was translated into 7 languages and voted ‘The Book of the Year’ in Kannada.
The biographical novel ‘Musalman’ (Muslim) was the actual account of the author’s childhood in the poverty-ridden Dongri area of Mumbai, which was home to many underworld ganglords including Haji Mastan, Karim Lala and Dawood Ibrahim.
A collection of his short stories, titled ‘Teesri Aankh’, won the President’s Award in 1993.
With personal maturity, Aabid Surti’s writings have also become more socially conscious, reflecting the tumultuous times the country and the muslim community within it, is passing through. His last novel ‘Kathavachak’ (The Storyteller) is an unusual love story set against the backdrop of the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya and the deadly riots that followed.
Aabid is also an accomplished playwright. ‘He is Radha,’ a comedy about a boy trapped in a woman’s body, has had more than 50 successful performances in India. He has also written more than half a dozen other plays, most of which have been translated onto stage in Hindi and Gujarati.
However, even this varied expression does not exhaust Aabid Surti, who also finds time to write Urdu poetry, Hindi film scripts and children’s books!
PAINTER After his schooling, he joined the J. J. School of Arts and trained in Fine Arts. In 1958, He had his first solo exhibition of watercolour landscapes in Nainital. Since then, he has had had more than 15 Solo Exhibitions in many prestigious galleries in India and abroad.
The uniqueness of Aabid Surti’s style of painting is that he doesn’t have one.
“I don’t sell my signature, I sell my canvasses,” he says, and has steadfastly refused to be tied down to one style, no matter how successful. Through his career, he has experimented with many techniques including mirror collage, acrylic casting (transparent paintings) and body painting.
He has spent the last decade exploring yet another new medium to express his creativity – stained glass. “It’s a challenge to combine the traditional church art with modern architecture and find new ways of using glass to create textures of light and colour,” he says.
Aabid has created more than 200 designs for stained glass, most of which have been executed by Khandwani Studio in Mumbai for clients from different countries.
CARTOONIST 
As a child, Aabid Surti began drawing by copying cartoons from scraps of comic pages left by British troops passing through Bombay port during the Second World War.
Though he later created many local characters for newspapers in his youth, he developed his most successful character only after his marriage – the innocent yet shrewd simpleton Dabbuji. The weekly comic strip looked at the nuances of marriage and relationships.
At its peak, the weekly cartoon strip touched a circulation of more than four lakh copies and enjoyed a huge fan following which included former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, singer Asha Bhonsale and Osho, who often recounted Dabbuji jokes during his early Hindi discourses.
It was one of the longest running Indian comic strips, enjoying an unbroken run for more than 30 years in the Hindi literary weekly “Dharmayug”. At times, the popularity of this comic character often eclipsed Aabid’s fame as a serious painter and author!
Another comic book character created by Aabid, which enjoyed a huge popularity was Bahadur. Bahadur was the son of a bandit who helped the dacoit-ridden villages to set up their own self-defence system. Bahadur is currently under negotiation for a full-length Bollywood feature film.
Other memorable characters developed by him include Inspector Azaad, Inspector Vikram and Shuja.
Source & Permission by Aabid Surti - www.aabidsurti.in/
As a child, Aabid Surti began drawing by copying cartoons from scraps of comic pages left by British troops passing through Bombay port during the Second World War. Though he later created many local characters for newspapers in his youth, he developed his most successful character only after his marriage – the innocent yet shrewd simpleton Dabbuji. The weekly comic strip looked at the nuances of marriage and relationships.
At its peak, the weekly cartoon strip touched a circulation of more than four lakh copies and enjoyed a huge fan following which included former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, singer Asha Bhonsale and Osho, who often recounted Dabbuji jokes during his early Hindi discourses.
It was one of the longest running Indian comic strips, enjoying an unbroken run for more than 30 years in the Hindi literary weekly “Dharmayug”. At times, the popularity of this comic character often eclipsed Aabid’s fame as a serious painter and author!
Another comic book character created by Aabid, which enjoyed a huge popularity was Bahadur. Bahadur was the son of a bandit who helped the dacoit-ridden villages to set up their own self-defence system. Bahadur is currently under negotiation for a full-length Bollywood feature film.
Other memorable characters developed by him include Inspector Azaad, Inspector Vikram and Shuja.
Source & Permission by Aabid Surti - www.aabidsurti.in/
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