if you have over 50,000 pics of movie stars, you ought to be nuts about moviedom. And so Zafar Aabid is.

He has studied about 75 per cent of the Hindi films ever released, he admits. No mean achievement, considering Bollywood's fabulous output has even interested the Guinness book guys.

Besotted by the stars, Aabid has picked pics from the time movies didn't have a soundtrack, when they gloried in Eastman colour and the time they spanned 70 mm and beyond. Many of them are rare and of enviable quality.

He has pics of every actor of the long defunct Imperial Film Company. Stills of Ruby Meyers, popularly known as Sulochana, Prithviraj Kapoor, Dulari, Zebunissa... All of them packed away with care. There are photographs of Dev Anand's first film Hum Ek Hain, Madhubala's first film with a southern film company, Bahut Din Huye, pics of Sardar Akhtar (Mehboob Khan's wife) inAurat, Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Paapi (you heard of that one?), one from the first Hindi talkie, Alam Ara,and many, many shots from films by Kardar, K Asif, Navketan Films, Guru Dutt Films, Prabhat and others. Never mind if you haven't heard of them all, it's that very ignorance that this book partly hopes to dispel.

Aabid is a silver jewellery salesman at the shopping arcade at The Oberoi, Bombay. Shop No 62, to be precise. But now that he is dimly beginning to appreciate the value people attach to his collection, he is thinking of turning author.

Some people had approached Aabid to enshrine his work, suggesting that he put the snaps together in a video cassette. But Aabid didn't like the idea.

"I don't trust a video cassette... It doesn't show the original print properly. I prefer a book, because books can be archived well. It's more mature and permanent too,". He began work on the book a few months ago, but isn't certain if it should be a light coffee table affair or stuffed with information. If only he knew what information he should pump in...

The only thing Aabid's certain about is that his pictures should be displayed well and that the book could be called Golden Days of Golden Cinema.

"I feel people are fed up of reading about the stars and their lives all the time. What I had planned was a book only with pictures -- and captions if necessary. Nothing else. People, I think, won't be bored by this kind of a book, with little reading material," he says, then adding with a rakish courage, "Let anybody come out with any number of books. Mine will be different."

He knows he can't print all the 50,000 pictures, and that fact keeps him awake nights. But he is at least happy he can provide rare pics of celebrities like Raj Kapoor and Nargis and, if necessary, pepper the book with nuggets of Bollywood information. Did you know, for instance, that Raj Kapoor and Nargis did 16 films together? No? Well, Aabid just told us that.

He admits he has not been actively involved with the film industry to know the celebrities himself. "But I used to visit shootings very often and whatever I know is what I have observed during those days."

Aabid has this soft spot for the films of the '50s and '60s. Placing it about the time his own hormones were in top form.

Now he wants to infuse his own sense of nostalgia into the youth of today. The current generation is not aware of those stars, he says. "I am sure they would not know an actress called Chitra, a top star during the silent era." Even the journalists who come to talk to him about his phenomenal collection don't know who's who in the industry.

People came to know of the pics when Aabid had the nerve to exhibit them some years ago. Thereafter, some journalists covered his collection. Aabid never charged for lending out his photographs at first, only demanding that they be handled a trifle more carefully than Ming China and that they be returned in the same condition that they were sent. That was also a time when he refused money for his pics.

"But now I do. Why shouldn't I? They are rare pictures." But he still takes money only if it is offered.

The collection has come from the unlikely of places. Shootings, footpaths, second hand paper shops... All provided grist for the movie maniac's mill.

It was easier to get pictures in those halcyon days, he says. Often, he didn't even have to pay for them since people didn't think they were very important. And pictures "Today, there are so many ways you can publicise the stars. Videos, magazines, television. Those days it was only the photographs that were needed. Who could think of these things during the silent era?" he asks.

Aabid admits he was one of those star-struck kids who came to Bombay from Uttar Pradesh to become an actor. Unfortunately, he took his time swallowing his pride and asking producers for work. He was also put off by the 'weird demands' of some producers. He has still to act in a movie.

"I was a good dancer, singer and actor," he sighs. Then shrugs dejectedly. It's all behind him now.

Aabid had acted in plays since he was six. His family, innocent of Bollywood's ways, encouraged him to go to Bombay. Failing to enter the industry, he decided to watch it from outside instead, editing a film magazine which printed film information, not gossip, he says firmly. That kept him going till his partner cheated him and forced him to close shop. Aabid resigned himself to a life of salesmanship. No more acting, he said to himself, but the pictures he had collected sustained him, nourished his dreams.

He claims he has no favourite actor or actress. "They were all so adorable," says the man who has had to watch the film world from the fringes, watching the stars bloat larger than life on marquee and screen. But he holds no brief for the current crop of actors. Which is why his collection ends with the stars of the 1960s.

"I do collect photographs but not as frequently," he says. "I am not too fond of the new stars. They are good, no doubt, but they don't appeal to me."

Aabid is worried that for the lack of a sponsor his book will be lost. He hasn't found a publisher nor funds to publish it himself. And a spiky personality forbids him from begging for aid.

"Why should I? They know I have these photographs; they can come to me." And so he keeps waiting, for ships that haven't come in.

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