Rehana Sultan and her filmmaker-husband B R Ishaara were a force to reckon with. They collaborated on several bold progressive films, especially Chetna. For a conservative Bahai girl to do those bold shots in Chetna was not easy.
Says Rehana, “I did Chetna because I liked the story of the rehabilitation of a prostitute. I had a problem with just one bedroom scene where my character was supposed to be nude. It was impossible for me to actually do a nude scene. I kept asking Ishaara Saab about it until he must’ve thought I’m interested in doing it. My hairdresser Maria bailed me out. She styled my hair with a wig in such a way that it covered my upper torso completely. As for the controversial shot of my legs in an inverted V, I had to do nothing, just hitch up my skirt a bit. But the effect was very bold. I’d say the bold scenes were more in the mind than body.”
B R Ishaara eventually became Rehana Sultan’s husband. “We got involved after a couple of years after Chetna. But I definitely admired him as a writer and director. My father had trusted me and let me enter movies. I didn’t want to do anything to compromise his name. Afterwards when Ishaara Saab and I got close I confessed to my father. Daddy was a very propah British-styled gent. Ishaara Saab was a barefoot artiste. Total opposites. Daddy was shocked by the cultural difference. He slowly started liking his future son-in-law, though unfortunately we got married in 1984 when my father had passed away. Neither of us was interested in parenthood. We saw no need to bring another human being into this troubled earth. My kid brother who lived with us, is like my son.”
