Ahsan, Syed Mehdi Hasan was born in Lucknow to a family of poets; he was trained in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu as well as in music and soldiery. This is because his father was an army officer and believed to have had a smattering of English. He grew attracted to playwriting after seeing a drama by Hubab.

Ahsan, Syed Mehdi Hasan based his first play, Dastavez-e-mohabbat or `Testimony of Passion` in the year of 1897, on Mirza Shauq`s famous narrative poem, Zahr-e-ishq or Love`s Poison. In the same year, he was appointed resident author of Dadabhai Thuthi`s Alfred Company. His first script for them, Chandravali, modelled on Karimuddin Murad`s enormously popular Chitra Bakavali, won him immediate acclaim. By 1905, he had written at least eight highly successful plays, among them adaptations of Shakespeare named Hamlet as Khun-e-nahaq or `Unjustified Murder` in 1898, Romeo and Juliet as Bazm-e-fani or `Fatal Union` in 1898, Merchant of Venice as Dilfarosh or `Merchant of Hearts` in 1900, and Twelfth Night as Bhulbhulaiya i.e. `Comedy of Errors` in 1901 were there. Film historians believe that Sohrab Modi cinematized Khun ka khun or `Murder for Murder` in 1935 from his hit stage production of Ahsan`s Hamlet adaptation.

This theatre personality Syed Mehdi Hasan had a successful but short career. He was a serious and remarkably accomplished writer; he tried to raise the standard of Urdu theatre. However, the scene had become brutally competitive and Ahsan, a proud man with a strong sense of integrity, was unable to make his literary skills subservient to the interests of a thoroughly commercial stage.