It may be a Muslim newspaper, but it employs both women and non-Muslims. Each calligrapher is responsible for one page, and earns about a dollar and a half for it. If someone is sick, the others have to pull double shifts.

The final proofs are transferred onto a black and white negative, and pressed onto printing plates.

The Musalman's prospects are in doubt because Urdu calligraphy is a fast-fading art. Calligrapher Shabana Begum has been writing the newspaper for twenty years, but is worried that no youngsters have come forward to continue the tradition.

“No one is learning the craft from us. Youngsters today learn calligraphy in Urdu schools, but they don’t use it, they prefer to work with computers instead. After us, there will be no one to write this by hand, the paper will have to be computerized,” says Shabana.

The newspaper comes out every evening and sells for less than two cents on the streets of Chennai. It has a circulation of 20,000, but this is dwindling.

Newspaper vendor Kalim Ahmed says demand is down:

“The paper is for a refined older generation of Urdu readers, who are dying off. So I sell only four to five papers every day.”

For centuries Urdu calligraphy was the mark of social status and education in India. Today, however, the future of this last bastion looks increasingly uncertain.