Yasser Usman

Yasser Usman (born 1980s) is an Indian television journalist, news presenter, and biographer. Born in Delhi,[1] Yasser Usman began his career by working as a television presenter and was awarded the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for his contribution. Usman has been recognised by the media as one of India's most successful film biographers.

Yasser Usman
Usman in 2017
Born1980s
India
NationalityIndian
Alma mater
Occupation(s)Writer,TV anchor, film journalist

As a biographer, Usman's meticulously researched books[2] primarily focus on the great cinematic journeys of stars, delving not only into their stardom but also their turbulent personal lives and tragic downfalls.[3] His recent book is Guru Dutt An Unfinished Story. Before this book, Usman wrote the Untold trilogy, a series of three biographies on Hindi cinema- Bollywood. It started with Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India's First Superstar (2014), which marked his debut as a biographer, and concluded with Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood's Bad Boy (2018). Along with Rekha: The Untold Story (2016), Rajesh Khanna was nominated for the Crossword Book Award.

Early life

Yasser Usman was born in the 1980s in Delhi.[4] After finishing his schooling in several cities of Uttar Pradesh, he moved to Delhi to attend the University of Delhi and the Ramjas College, graduating with a Master of Science degree in environmental studies at the latter. He subsequently joined the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, training as a journalist for radio and television.[5]

Career

Journalism

He started a career with the television company B.A.G. Films, and followed it by working for Channel 7; he produced a reality sports show titled Speedster, hosted the film review show Premier 7 and wrote-directed Raaz: Forensic Files Se, a television show on forensic science in India.[5] After resigning from Channel 7, Usman worked on an investigative show, Benaqab, and served as the creative consultant for The Tony B Show, a talk show aired on Channel V in 2006.[5][6] Usman joined Star News (later renamed ABP News) in 2007, in which he specialized in the non-fiction programming part; he directed several documentaries about sports and biographies of political figures and film personalities. In addition to working as a film critic and commentator, he hosted ABP News' digital show Cinema Uncut with Yasser Usman.[5] In 2012, Usman won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for his contribution to film and television journalism.[7] In 2016, the website Filmymonkey, on which he served as the founding editor, was launched.[5]

In 2022, Usman hosted a show Cricket Tales With Yasser Usman[8] from London. The series covers interesting stories from the world of cricket.

In 2023, Usman started working as a Columnist[9] writing on cinema for Khaleej Times, UAE's longest-running English daily newspaper, published in Dubai.

Author

In 2014, Usman made his debut as an author with Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India's First Superstar, a Penguin Books biography about the actor and politician Rajesh Khanna. The writing started when he was in Mumbai to record a show for ABP News, at the same time he got to know about Khanna's death in 2012. Vijay Lokapally from The Hindu labelled it as an exception tribute to Khanna,[10] but Gautam Chintamani of India Today observed that Usman did not detail much of his films.[11] Following the publication, Usman said he received handwritten letters and emails from Khanna's fans, saying that they were surprised about Khanna's loneliness, motivating him to research other popular film stars' lives.[12]:ix[13]

Usman's next book, Rekha: The Untold Story, is about the actress Rekha.[14] The second biography of the actress after Mohan Deep's Eurekha! (1999),[15] Usman's one-year research for this work included collecting archives of magazine issues about Rekha and interviewing her contemporaries, around 40 to 50 people.[12]:x–xii[16] The Asian Age's Nayare Ali wrote it as "a book that anyone who is a fan or even fascinated by the star, would be tempted to read".[17] Rohini Nair of Firstpost saw the book reveals nothing "untold" about the actress, and felt Usman relied entirely on the existing sources.[18] Sowmya Rajendran from The News Minute wrote positively of the book's prose, calling it "fast-paced and lucidly written with plenty of spice, making it a perfect airplane read".[19]

Usman's other two books: Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood's Bad Boy and Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story, also garnered a generally positive reception. Published in 2018, the former details the life of the actor Sanjay Dutt and is the last of his Untold trilogy, reflecting the use of the word "untold" in the title of Usman's first three books.[20] It was controversial after Dutt decried that the book was published without his authorisation.[21] Mint's Sanjukta Sharma praised Usman's deep research and his neutral point of view,[22] and Film Companion listed it as one of the "top seven books on cinema of the year".[23]

Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story, released in 2021 by Simon & Schuster, describes the life of the filmmaker Guru Dutt. It was after watching Dutt's films at the 2004 Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema when Usman was motivated to write about him. While researching for the book, Usman was met with the lack of free-domain archives of Dutt's interviews.[24][25] Writing for The Hindu, Mini Anthikad Chhibber appreciated the book's remembrances by Dutt's sister, the artist Lalita Lajmi.[26] In his review for Business Standard, the reviewer Chintan Girish Modi wrote, "Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story is a moving account of a creative genius who was influenced by Hollywood melodrama, German expressionism, Bhakti poetry, and the Bauls of Bengal."[27] Sathya Saran of The New Indian Express, however, gave a scathing review.[28] The Hindustan Times featured the book in their "The Most Interesting Reads of the Week" listing,[29] and The Telegraph included it in their year-end "Page Turners of 2021".[30] Asian Voice (London) praised the book saying, "a mirror that reflects the hard-hitting realities of cinema ever since its inception. It is a narrative that shatters the myths, the rose-tinted glasses with which we as viewers look up to the film industry."[31]

Reception

Yasser Usman has been recognised by the media as one of India's most successful film biographers[32] and gained a reputation for his writings that primarily focus on what is called the "dark side" of Bollywood.[33] All of his books are unauthorised biographies;[21] writing for The Telegraph in 2018, "However, 'unauthorised' doesn't mean 'irresponsible'. It only means I was going to have a harder time piecing together the narrative."[33] This has once led him to controversy after his book on Sanjay Dutt was published when Dutt criticised Usman for not asking for his permission to write the book.[21] Usman's books on Rajesh Khanna and Rekha were nominated for the Crossword Book Award in the biography category.[34][35]

Bibliography
  • Usman, Yasser (5 December 2014). Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India's First Superstar. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-9-351-18875-9.
  • Usman, Yasser (29 August 2016). Rekha: The Untold Story. Juggernaut Books. ISBN 978-81-93284-18-6.
  • Usman, Yasser (13 March 2018). Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood's Bad Boy. Juggernaut Books. ISBN 978-81-93284-18-6.
  • Usman, Yasser (7 January 2021). Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-93-86797-89-6.

References
  1. "Yasser Usman". Penguin Random House India. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  2. "Book seeks to reveal unknown facets of Rajesh Khanna's life". The Indian Express. 20 December 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  3. "The curious life of an unauthorised Bollywood biographer". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  4. "Yasser Usman". Penguin Random House India. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  5. Usman, Yasser (2021). "More About Yasser". YasserUsman.com. Archived from the original on 9 May 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  6. "Star News launches 'Benaqab'". Indian Television. 23 September 2006. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  7. "Ramnath Goenka Awards: The Storytellers". The Indian Express. 14 September 2014. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  8. "Cricket Tales - Interesting Stories from The World of Cricket - video Dailymotion". Dailymotion. 28 December 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  9. "Khaleej Times - Search". Khaleej Times. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  10. Lokapally, Vijay (12 December 2014). "A star only too human". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  11. Chintamani, Gautam (9 February 2015). "Superstar-crossed actor". India Today. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  12. Usman, Yasser (29 August 2016). Rekha: The Untold Story. New Delhi, India: Juggernaut Books. ISBN 978-81-93284-18-6.
  13. Kotnala, Stutee (11 September 2016). "'Rekha was glamorous, wild she wanted marriage'". The Asian Age. Archived from the original on 14 August 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  14. Tuteja, Joginder (20 September 2016). "Book Review: Yasser Usman's Rekha – The Untold Story". Bollywood Hungama. Archived from the original on 10 July 2017. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  15. Ramnath, Nandini (8 September 2016). "'Rekha was honest about everything and Bollywood tried to tame her': biographer Yasser Usman". Scroll.in. Archived from the original on 17 December 2020. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  16. Majumdar, Anushree (9 September 2016). "I wanted to make the reader think differently about Rekha, says Yasser Usman on his latest book". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  17. Ali, Nayare (11 September 2016). "Rekha, the eternal fighter". The Asian Age. Archived from the original on 19 February 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  18. Nair, Rohini (6 September 2016). "Rekha's biography claims to tell the enigmatic star's 'untold story': Does it?". Firstpost. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  19. Rajendran, Sowmya (11 September 2016). "Want to know how Bollywood treats its women? This book on actor Rekha's life is an eye-opener!". The News Minute. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  20. Usman, Yasser (25 March 2018). "A life not seen through rose-tinted glasses". The Asian Age. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  21. Malik, Eekta (10 August 2018). "'I am so tired of goody-goody hagiographies'". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 5 June 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  22. Sharma, Sanjukta (24 March 2018). "Do we need to retell the Bollywood bad boy story?". Mint. Archived from the original on 16 June 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  23. Das, Aprita (19 December 2018). "Top 7 Books On Cinema In 2018". Film Companion. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  24. Bose, Sushmita (11 March 2021). "Guru Dutt was an immensely poor communicator in real life". Khaleej Times. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  25. Saxena, Shefali (26 January 2021). "'Beyond their stardom, the stars are humans'". Asian Voice. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  26. Chhibber, Mini Anthikad (27 March 2021). "'Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story' review: Black, white and shades of grey". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  27. Modi, Chintan Girish (15 January 2021). "Guru Dutt, in sharp focus". www.business-standard.com. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  28. Saran, Sathya (8 August 2021). "Guru Dutt's 'An Unfinished Story': An unsuccessful attempt". The New Indian Express. Archived from the original on 8 August 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  29. "HT Picks: The most interesting reads of the week". Hindustan Times. 8 January 2021. Archived from the original on 29 January 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  30. "Page Turners of 2021: Biography and Memoirs". The Telegraph. 31 December 2021. Archived from the original on 19 January 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  31. ABPL. "Book Review: Guru Dutt An Unfinished Story..." www.asian-voice.com. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  32. "On Nepotism and Casting 'Ouch' Moments". Juggernaut Books. 3 July 2020. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  33. Usman, Yasser (11 October 2018). "The curious life of an unauthorised Bollywood biographer". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  34. Pimputkar, Sonali (29 November 2016). "Crossword to celebrate Indian writing with 14th Raymond Crossword Book Award". The Free Press Journal. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  35. "Devdutt Pattanaik, Sadhguru shortlisted for Crossword Book Award". Hindustan Times. Indo-Asian News Service. 4 December 2017. Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
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