Happy Birthday, Rehana Sultan.
Rehana Sultan, the 70s ‘Chetna’ Sensation who picked up the prestigious national award for the best actress for her debut role in Dastak.
Only the cinegoers of those days will recall Rehana Sultan and the sensation she created by her very first film Dastak 1970 and later Chetna in the year 1974 and Kissa Kursi Kaa in1977.
Chetna, an uneven and gutsy film on the rehabilitation of a prostitute, was a rash outlier. The film, directed by BR Ishara, a chain-smoking maverick, appeared to shock India. Her role as a prostitute in Chetna became one of India’s most talked about scenes.
Dastak, directed by respected Urdu writer Rajinder Singh Bedi, was about the travails of a struggling newly-wed couple who unwittingly rented an apartment, previously occupied by a dancing girl, in a red light district in Mumbai.
Rehana Sultan was the victim of typecasting, her obvious talent ignored because of her ‘sexy’ scenes.
She later vanished and married with BR Ishara and living in Mumbai.
