I gave a zabardast thappad to a famous writer

Poster girl of the ’70s, Rehana Sultan, revisits her life and times on her 69th birthday. Farhana Farook takes notes

Sprawled in bed, the liquor emboldening her, Seema bares her seduction game on her reluctant customer. Unreciprocated, she stands up, the camera spotlighting her legs with the man in the frame looking away... The outrageous scene from B R Ishara's Chetna (1970), featuring newbies FTll graduates Rehana Sultan and Anil Dhawan, made it to every billboard in town. Shaking sexual morality out of its conceit, it changed the cinematic idiom forever. While Chetna had her play hooker Seema, Rajinder Singh Bedi's Dastak, released the same year, had Rehana play newlywed Salma, yearning for intimacy with her husband. That she's mistaken for being a courtesan is an irony of circumstance. If Chetna was prosaic, Dastak was poetry. But both hinged on the objectification of women, stripping sexual predatory to the bone. Generous acclaim and awards later, Rehana hailed as the mascot of New Wave cinema, found herself trapped by the typecasting syndrome... In the '80s, she married mentor and maverick B R Ishara, her senior by several years. From muse to mate, hers was an abiding commitment until he passed away in 2012. His memories still turn her misty. His philosophy brings her solace. Away from the limelight, the 69-year-old Rehana values the afterglow of a life lived with integrity...

Dastak and Chetna, both in 1970, brought you instant fame.