Jaishankar Bhojak Biography 
Jaishankar Bhojak was a famous stage actor and director associated with Gujarati theatre, one of the leading names of the 20th century who has given significant contributions. His full name is Jaishankar Bhudhardas Bhojak and often known by his stage name - Jaishankar 'Sundari'. He was a recipient of Ranjitram Suvarna Chandrak, the highest literal award of Gujarat for the year 1951. He also received the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi award for drama direction from Rajendra Prasad, followed by Padma Bhushan in 1971 from V. V. Giri. He was also a recipient of Gujarat Rajya Sangeet Nrutya Akademi in 1967.
He was born on 30 January 1889 in Undhai near Visnagar, Gujarat. Though he was born into the family of Brahmins, his family members were traditionally involved in performing arts and singing. Following the footsteps, Jaishankar Bhojak too chose the same field. Not involved too much in studies, he learnt performing arts from his grandfather and also Hindustani music from Pandit Vadilal Nayak. He later joined his grandfather’s theatre company at Kolkata at the age of 18 years and got fully involved with it. Four years later in 1901, he moved to Mumbai and joined Chotalal Kapadia's Mumbai Gujarati Natak Mandali where he performed in Hindi and Urdu languages.
In those days, he mostly did female characters on stage and his role as Desdemona in Saubhagya Sundari, a Shakespeare adaption gave him appreciation a lot. After that he also came to be known by the name - Jaishankar 'Sundari', and got regularly paired with Bapulal Nayak as female lead in many stage plays. Since 1948 for next two decades he got associated with theatre as a director. His satire play, Mithyabhiman is one of his noted plays as a direction and through his plays he revived the traditional art form – Bhavai.
Published: N/A
Updated: March 06, 2016
