Ahmad Abbas
In a frame sequence of the 1939 film "Aadmi" by V. Shantaram, which was simultaneously released along with "Zindagi", the romantic "pessimism" of Barua was caricatured. According to Garga, this incident provided enough "grist" for the news media. An unnamed Gujarati weekly remarked, "Shantaram's eye is on life, Barua's on death." Jamil Ansari, a critic, strongly defended "Zindagi". Khwaja Ahmad Abbas compared the two films and wrote: