Yasser Usman

Yasser Usman (born 1980s) is an Indian television journalist, news presenter, author and biographer. In the media, he has been recognised as one of India's most successful film biographers and noted for his writings that focused on the so-called "dark side" of the country's Bollywood.

Yasser Usman
Usman in 2017
Born1980s
Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
NationalityIndian
Alma mater
OccupationBiographer, film critic, anchor, journalist

Born in Moradabad, Usman's interest in the cinema started owing to his hobby of renting popular film magazines and buying biographies during his childhood. He started his authorial career in 2014 with the release of Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India's First Superstar, and ahs written three more biographical books since then.

Early life

Yasser Usman was born in the 1980s in Moradabad.[1]:xii[2] His father, M. Usman, is a chemistry professor and college principal; his mother, Haseeba Khanam, is a philanthropist.[3] In his childhood, Usman had a hobby to read rented popular film magazines and books on Indian film actors.[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 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.[3]

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 sport 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.[3] After resigning from Channel 7, Usman worked on an investigative show, Benaqab, and served as the creative consultant of The Tony B Show, a talk show aired on Channel V in 2006.[3][5] Usman joined Star News (later renamed ABP Live) 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 film critic and commentator, he hosted ABP News' digital show Cinema Uncut with Yasser Usman.[3] In 2012, Usman won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for his contribution in film and television journalism.[6] In 2016, the website Filmymonkey, on which he served as the founding editor, was launched.[3]

Author

In 2014, Usman made his debut as an author with Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India's First Superstar, a Penguin Books-published 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.[7] Following the publication, Usman 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.[1]:ix[8] His next book, Rekha: The Untold Story, about the actress Rekha, was met with critical acclaim.[9][10] The Asian Age wrote it as "a book that anyone who is a fan or even fascinated by the star, would be tempted to read".[11]

His other two books: Sanjay Dutt: The Crazy Untold Story of Bollywood's Bad Boy and Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story, also garnered positive reception. Published in 2018, the former details the life of the actor Sanjay Dutt and was controversial after Dutt decried the book being published without his authorisation.[2] Mint's Sanjukta Sharma praised Usman's deep research and praised the writer's neutral point of view,[12] and Film Companion listed it as one of the "top seven books on cinema of the year".[13] The latter book, released in 2021 by Simon & Schuster, describes the life of the filmmaker Guru Dutt. Writing for The Hindu, Mini Anthikad Chhibber appreciated the book's remembrances by Dutt's sister, the artist Lalita Lajmi;[14] Sathya Saran of The New Indian Express, however, criticised the work for having too much plagiarism from other works about the subject.[15]

Reception

Usman has been recognised by the media as one of India's most successful film biographers,[4] and gained a reputation for his writings that primarily focus on what is called the "dark side" of Bollywood.[16] All of his books are unauthorised biographies;[2] 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."[16] 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.[2] Usman's books on Rajesh Khanna and Rekha, were nominated for the Crossword Book Award in the biography category.[17][18]

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. Usman, Yasser (29 August 2016). Rekha: The Untold Story. New Delhi, India: Juggernaut Books. ISBN 978-81-93284-18-6.
  2. 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.
  3. Usman, Yasser (2021). "More About Yasser". YasserUsman.com. Archived from the original on 9 May 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  4. "On Nepotism and Casting 'Ouch' Moments". Juggernaut Books. 3 July 2020. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  5. "Star News launches 'Benaqab'". Indian Television. 23 September 2006. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  6. "Ramnath Goenka Awards: The Storytellers". The Indian Express. 14 September 2014. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  7. Lokapally, Vijay (12 December 2014). "A star only too human". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Ali, Nayare (11 September 2016). "Rekha, the eternal fighter". The Asian Age. Archived from the original on 19 February 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. "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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