Mohan Shankar

Mohan was born and raised in Bangalore. His father, Shankar, worked with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, while mother, Satyabhama, is a homemaker. He obtained a bachelor of science degree from National College, Bangalore in electronics. During this time, he began to act in and write plays. His future wife, Vidya, a singer, was his junior in the college, and the two married in 1998. They have a son together, Mayookha. After briefly working for a private form, Mohan joined the television channel Udaya TV in the mid-1990s, and worked as an art director and screenwriter for its soap operas. He then began working in films as a screenwriter, before being cast as one of the leads on Yaarige Saluthe Sambala (2000). Prior to that, he had appeared in supporting roles in films such as Central Jail (1997), Kurubana Rani (1998), Krishna Leele (2000) and Preethse (2000). After Yaarige Saluthe Sambala turned out to be a commercial success, Mohan was cast in the first two parts of the comedy film series, Kurigalu Saar Kurigalu: the namesake and Kothigalu Saar Kothigalu, both of which released in 2001 to commercial success. His appearance, partly as a woman, in Olu Saar Bari Olu (2003) received praise. A remake of the Marathi comedy film Ashi Hi Banwa Banwi (1988), it stars Mohan as a friend of Raghupati, who tricks the latter's landlord into believing that he is a woman by posing as one of his wives, named Chandralekha. He played Hanuma, a trusted friend of Ravichandran's eponymous lead, in Malla (2004), also directed by the latter. Mohan also wrote the dialogue for the film.

Mohan made his directorial debut with the romance-drama Krishna Nee Late Aagi Baaro (2010), co-starring himself alongside Ramesh Aravind and Nidhi Subbaiah. Critics received the film well; the reviewer for The Times of India felt the film had "a neat script and lively narration", and termed the film "complete family entertainer". His second film was Narasimha (2012), set in the rural hinterland, where a village vigilante, played by Ravichandran, is at loggerheads with a landlord. The film was panned by critics. His other release of the year was a comedy-thriller, Manjunatha BA LLB, a remake of the Malayalam film Hallo (2007). Jaggesh features in the titular role as an alcoholic advocate, whose career is revived by a friend and a stranger who comes to him for legal representation in court.

In 2014, Mohan directed Sachin! Tendulkar Alla, a story about an autistic child that dreams of becoming a professional cricketer. The film stars Snehith as the boy, Suhasini Maniratnam as his sister and former cricketer Venkatesh Prasad as his coach. The film received acclaim for its subject matter and performances. His next directorial, a thriller titled Male Nilluvavarege was released in 2015, an adaptation of the play, Deadly Game. In addition to directing, Mohan played the lead role in the film, while also producing it and writing the film's screenplay and dialogue. He also wrote lyrics for the film's soundtrack and sang one of the tracks. Muralidhara Khajane reviewed the film positively for The Hindu. He felt the director uses rain (Male) as a metaphor "to represent guilt and tries to make the film different from the violent and romantic films hitting the screens these days." G. S. Kumar of The Times of India praised the film and wrote, "It's a one-man show by Mohan who plays his role to perfection." However, the film's theatrical release was marred by call for a bandh in Karnataka, leading to its poor commercial performance at the box office.