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The Filmī-ʿIlmī Formula: Shama Magazine and the Urdu Cosmopolis


This article traces the history and significance of Shama (Shamʿ) magazine in the context of Urdu popular culture in the twentieth century. Published monthly from 1939 to 1999, Shama developed a successful filmī-ʿilmī (film and belles-lettres) formula that made it the most widely circulated Urdu monthly in India for half a century. I analyze Shama’s components and publishing strategies, drawing on archival evidence, interviews, and personal testimony. Building on work by Jennifer Dubrow, Francesca Orsini, and others, I argue that Shama played an important role in defining the post-Independence Urdu public. While Shama purported to cater to male readership, visual and textual evidence suggests that the Shama community also included a “secret” readership of women. I further argue that Shama’s cover paintings, and the juxtaposition of text and image within, embody some of the contradictions of the mid-twentieth-century Urdu cosmopolis.