Chandu Lal Bahadur Shadan

Chandu Lal Bahadur Shadan (birth year disputed, 1761–62 / 1763 / 1766 – 15 April 1845) was a Maharaja, statesman and poet of Hyderabad. Born in Hyderabad to a Khatri family from Rai Bareilly, he rose from a clerk of the vegetable market to become Prime Minister of Hyderabad State, serving from after Munir-ul-Mulk's death in 1832–33 until his resignation in 1844. He received the title of Maharaja from Sikandar Jah in 1819–20 and was famed for a generosity that drew poets and men of letters to his court — he even invited Zauq from Delhi, who declined. He studied Persian poetry with Qatil and Hafiz and Urdu poetry with Shah Nasir, and wrote extensively in Persian — a Kulliyat, a 4,025-couplet masnavi, three divans of ghazals — alongside Urdu verse, of which one divan has been published. He died at Hyderabad on 15 April 1845.