Zia Sarhadi

Zia Sarhadi was an Urdu writer born in Peshawar, Pakistan. He went on to write scripts and direct movies for the Indian Film Industry. He got acquainted with the film industry in the year 1933. He wrote the dialogues, lyrics to the songs, and script for the movie Deccan Queen in 1936 directed by Mehboob Khan Mehboob Khan was a pioneer producer-director of Hi >> Read More... . That year, he also acted in and wrote the scenes and songs for the movie Manmohan 1936. In 1941, he wrote the screenplay for the movie Bahen which was produced under the banner of National Studios. After partition, Zia went on to live in Pakistan where he directed Rahguzar in 1960 which met with the scrutiny of the censor board. He did not direct any more movies because of censorship issues. He wrote the dialogues for Shehar Aur Saye in 1974.

He wrote the dialogues for Aurat Raj (1979) which was not met with much appreciation. Zia then left Pakistan and went to live in the United Kingdom and stayed there for the rest of his life. He worked with BBC on several projects during his time in the UK. He died in Madrid in 1997. His body of work is huge. He directed the movies: Bhole Bhale (1936), ‘ Abhilasha Abhilasha is a Telugu TV serial that aired on Gemi >> Read More... ’ (1938), ‘Nadaan’ (1943)Humlog (1951), Baiju Bawara (1952), Footpath (1953), and many more. He played a crucial role in writing the script of Mother India (1957). He has also written ‘Kal Ki Baat’ (1937), ‘Badi Maa’ (1945), ‘Anokha Pyar’ (1948), and ‘ Khel Khel is Smita Thackeray’s first serial telecasted >> Read More... ’ (1950).