LAHORE: Great television genius Yawar Hayat, 73, who served as producer and director at PTV, died at the Combined Military Hospitals after a prolonged illness, family sources said on Thursday. Born on October 18, 1943, Yawar served at the state-run television centre from 1965 to 2004. He is considered one of the chief architects of the drama serials in its early years after television was introduced in Pakistan in 1964. Yawar introduced top actors, producers, writers, musicians through the state-run television. As a young producer-director, he directed the immensely popular rural folk drama Jhok Siyaal (1973), based on a work written earlier by Syed Shabbir Hussain Shah, the Punjabi writer. This was followed by serials such as Samandar, Nasheman, Lamp Post, Adam Zaad, Dehleez, Sahil, Gumshuda and others between the 1980s and 1990s. The influence of British film director Sir David Lean is often visible on his work, especially his epic, panoramic shots of natural scenes. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the Forman Christian College after initially being educated at Aitchison College. In an interview, Yawar compared some of his work to the writings of the American writer William Faulkner, stating that he also created highly cerebral and complex works that often reflected the lives of decaying feudal autocrats at odds with a changing society; as well as a diversity of rural and urban poor engaged in a harsh and sometimes grotesque struggle for existence.