मुंशी ग़ुलाम ज़िलानी 'शाम'

Munshi Gulam Zilani 'Sham' was a lyricist of the earliest years of Indian talkie cinema, remembered for Roop Basant (1933), a Saroj Movietone production directed by A. P. Kapoor. He wrote the film's entire songbook — more than a dozen numbers set to music by composer Sunder Das Bhatia — and film-song databases also record him under the shortened credit 'Munshi Shams'. His Roop Basant lyrics range across the idioms of the period: Urdu ghazal-style pieces such as 'Ishq Wo Nakhl Hai Jispe Naa Laga Phal Ek Baar' and 'Falak Ki Suni Pashame Gurbat', the devotional 'Ram Sumir Ram Sumir', Krishna-themed and monsoon songs like 'Natwar Girdhaari Ne Mori Gaagar Utaari' and 'Barsan Laagi Ri Hai Badariyaa', and the patriotic 'Hamare Desh Ki Mitti Jawahir Se Badhkar Hain'. A lyricist credited as 'Munshi Sham Jilani' also appears a decade later in Vishwas (1943) and may well be the same writer. Like many song-writers of the first talkie decade, his birth and death details have not survived in accessible film archives.