B.R. Ishara

B.R.Isharas's real name is Roshanlal Sharma and he is from Himachal Pradesh. He ran away from home and came to Bombay and began working as a tea boy on the sets of Hindi films. As is normal, a small boy in India is addressed as Babu. So he became Babu and very soon graduated to becoming a spot boy on the sets. The producer he was working for had a guru by the name of Roshanlal and he did not like to call this new spot boy by his guru's name. Babu it remained. But young Babu soon discovered a felicity with words and began to assist various dialogue writers. To add dignity he added Ram to his name and called himself Babu Ram. One dialogue gave him the pen name of "Ishara" as an "indicator" of things to come. Thus was born Babu Ram (B.R.) Ishara. He wrote dialog for many small films and came in touch with producer-editor I.M.Kunnu. Ishara had several hard-hitting stories which revolved around sexual hypocrisy in the middle class. He questioned the middle class morals of Indian families and Kunnu was willing to taker a risk and produce the films. The first film they ventured into was Zaroorat but it had so many sex scenes that it just kept doing the rounds of the censors. In the meantime they had made Chetna with Rehana Sultan and Anil Dhawan (both graduates of the FTII, Pune). The film did not have too many daring scenes though it had a daring story and real hard hitting dialog. Chetna created a sensation. By then a much watered down version of Zaroorat had made it through the censors and that was soon released. These small films with hard hitting stories and even harder hitting dialog created a wave and many other imitators like Ram Dayal etc came to the fore.In the late eighties he directed Superstar Rajesh Khanna in Woh Phir Ayegi, a horror film, which was a silver jubilee hit at the box office.In 90's his film Sautela Bhai was critically acclaimed. Ishara today lives in a Mumbai suburb, married to his first heroine Rehana Sultan who made a name for herself and had Gold Medal at the FTII, Pune (graduated in 1966) and her terrific start in Dastak (National Award as Best Actress 1970).