Umer Sharif

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Umer Sharif (Urdu: عمر شریف) kouta nice stage player (born 1955 in Liaquatabad, Karachi) is a Pakistani comedian, stage, film and TV actor, director and producer. He rose to fame due to his work on stage and his stage shows are considered among the best in Pakistan. He started his showbiz career from Karachi as stage performer. Umer became one of the most well known stage performers in Pakistan after his extremely popular 1985 comedy stage play Bakra Qistoon Pay.

Bakra Qistoon Pay is considered to be the show that made stage plays what they are today in Pakistan. Before the advent of Bakra Qistoon Pay majority stage shows in Pakistan used to be classy with rather poetic dialogues. After Bakra Qistoon Pay stage shows became a vibrant, majorly comical (and often gritty) part of the Pakistani culture. It has also sparked many sequels. He has also produced films like Mr. 420, Mr. Charlie, Miss Fitna etc.

The popularity of Bakra Qistoon Pay also crossed the border into India as well and Umer Sharif became a famous name in India as well. Many of his famous dialogues were copied in Indian movies. In fact Sharif is in process of completing his first Indian movie as a director.

Umer Sharif's satire has a grim darkside to which becomes increasingly visible especially when his fame outgrows local frame : this is strange anti-India stand. In many of his play he has expressed familiarity with a rabid fear of Indian culture’s conquest of Pakistani mind. He has openly criticized Indian films and its Hindu characters and creators. In fourth sequel of Bakra Quiston Pay, shot on an American 'stage' (with a little symbolical audience to make it a stage-show) he crosses a boundaries of stage decency with a his deliberately rude and wicked dialogue to the character of a 'Hindu' nurse hired to look after him, which embarrasses even the most hard-boiled mulla.