Steered by social media, Arabic calligraphy is witnessing a resurgence as an art form in south India

Steered by social media, Arabic calligraphy is witnessing a resurgence as an art form in south India

There was a time when India’s popular culture and artistic sensibilities were shaped by multilingual calligraphy, for instance, in Urdu, which adapted from the Arabic script. Indian film posters (Alam Ara, 1931, Mughal-e-Azam, 1960; Pakeezah, 1972, among others), wedding cards, shop hoardings and even legal documents were handwritten/hand-painted in Urdu, as were a number of magazines (like Shama and Din Dunia) and newspapers (like The Musalman, handwritten in Urdu and printed from Chennai), ...