Jaishankar Sundari

Jaishankar Bhojak 'Sundari'
Jaishankar 'Sundari' (right) in conversation with Mama Warerkar (left) and C. G. Kolhatkar (centre) at the presentation of Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards in New Delhi on 31 March 1957
Born	Jaishankar Bhudhardas Bhojak (1889-01-30)30 January 1889 Undhai near Visnagar, Gujarat
Died	22 January 1975(1975-01-22) Visnagar
Other names	Jaishankar 'Sundari'
Occupation	Theatre actor and director
Years active	1897 – 1932 (acting), 1948 – 1962 (direction)

Jaishankar Bhudhardas Bhojak, (30 January 1889 – 22 January 1975) better known by his theatre name Jaishankar 'Sundari' , is an Indian actor and director of Gujarati theatre.

He was born in the family of Bhojak, the performing caste of Brahmins, in Undhai near Visnagar on 30 January 1889. However, his family members were traditionally involved in performing arts and singing. He studied up to second standard. He was trained in performing arts and singing by his grandfather, Tribhuvandas who himself was trained by Ustad Fakhruddin. He was also trained in music by Pandit Vadilal Nayak.

He started his career by joining Dadabhai Thuthi's Urdu performing art company in Calcutta in 1897. Later he joined Chotalal Kapadia's Mumbai Gujarati Natak Mandali in 1901. Along with Gujarati, he also performed in Hindi and Urdu languages. He mainly performed as a female impersonator as females were not allowed in theatres in those times.

He played role of Desdemona as a female impersonator in Saubhagya Sundari, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello by Parsi theatre in Bombay. It was successful and Jaishankar was nicknamed Sundari. He also performed as a female lead opposite Bapulal Nayak several times. He along with Bapulal brought Govardhanram Tripathi's Saraswatichandra, plays of Nrisinh Vibhakar and Mulshankar Mulani. He retired in 1932 and returned to Visnagar.

He was active in Ahmedabad from 1948 to 1962 as a director in theatre. Later he organised a performing troupe and theatre school, Natamandal with Rasiklal Parikh and Ganesh Mavlankar. He revived Bhavai, the traditional performing art form, by directing Mithyabhiman, a satirical play by Dalpatram. They produced several plays like Mena Gujri in 1953 which he synthesized Bhavai and Beijing Opera.