Jawaid Danish is the founder and artistic director of Rang Manch, Canada, a not for profit theatrical group which promotes Indian theatre in Canada. He organises the Hindustani Drama Festival annually, showcasing the varied and rich heritage of Indian theatre. A celebrated author of 12 books in Urdu, Jawaid’s repertoire includes travelogues, poetry collections and drama. He prefers to write in Urdu which is his mother tongue, but his plays have been translated into English, Swedish, Hindi, Bengali and Kannada. Some of the plays from his award winning book ‘Hijrat Ke Tamashey’ were adapted for a 13-episode serial produced by Omni 2 T.V. in Toronto. His latest book of plays is ‘Chalees Baba Eik Chor’; recently he produced a film ‘Bada Shayer Chota Aadmi’ the first Indo-Canadian Urdu Film. He has received numerous awards and recognition including The Civic Arts Award – Pickering 2010, South Asian Theatre Festival Award – New Jersey 2008 and the Shiromani Sahitya Award – India 2007
