दीवान शरर

Deewan Sharar (also spelled Dewan Sharar or Diwan Sharar; 1899-1969) was a Hindi-Urdu screenwriter, dialogue writer, lyricist, and occasional actor active from the 1930s to the 1950s. Born in Multan in undivided Punjab to a family that had served as Dewans (ministers) in Indian princely states, he graduated from Government College, Lahore, and by 1919 had founded a repertory company staging Hindustani plays and mushairas. In 1929 he set up a film production and distribution company and edited Shabistan, regarded as one of the earliest Urdu cinema journals in India.

In 1933 he travelled to London to help complete Himansu Rai's Indo-British production Karma, for which he wrote the story, and he produced and acted in its Hindustani version, Nagin Ki Rani. Returning to India in 1939, he partnered with director V. Shantaram, writing the screenplay for Shakuntala (1943) — the first film released under Shantaram's newly formed Rajkamal Kalamandir banner, with music by Vasant Desai.

The Sharar-Shantaram association continued for over a decade, with Sharar credited as story, screenplay, dialogue, and song writer, and occasionally as an actor, on Rajkamal Kalamandir productions until Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje (1955). His other lyricist credits include Apna Desh (1949), Doraha (1952), and Teen Batti Chaar Raasta (1953), and he took acting roles in films such as Kanoon (1960), in which he played Judge Jha.