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Going places
It was referendum day and Iffat was busy trying to scrub the indelible ink mark off her thumb. Surprise, surprise — the indelible ink under the influence of soap and water lost its indelibility. But the bigger surprise was the fact that Iffat had actually bothered voting and this brought the number of voters amongst my circle of acquaintances to a grand total of two.
“I’m no high brow political thinker and skimming through the newspaper headlines is how far my interest in politics goes. But for the first time ever I do feel that we have a leader who has his heart and head in the right place and I just hope he does not let us down.”
Iffat Rahim (she now adds Omar to her name) has always been the odd one out. As a model what she lacked in height and stature she more than made up for with her attitude and oomph. As a small screen actress she arrived with a dearth of vital contacts and experience; a deficiency she overcame by upstaging others through her tremendous presence on the screen. As a compere, she lacked in the ability to make nonsensical small talk; this defect she dealt with by making full use of her cheerful demeanour and witty comments. And so it went on, with people continually telling her that she couldn’t do it and with Iffat coming out victorious each and every time.
“I get a kick out of proving such cynics wrong,” comments Iffat with a grin.
But the steady stream of successes has understandably earned Iffat more rivalries than well wishers; not that this seems to bother our lady much.
“I have now realized that I am too beautiful, talented and successful to be liked,” she claims with a glint in her eye. And though this comment might sound nauseatingly self centred, those who know her will guarantee that it is just a put on. The real Iffat is all about outrageous statements and an uproarious sense of humour, a love for movies and an addiction to great books; a dedication to her work and satisfaction as a home maker.
Iffat seems to have come up with the perfect formula of how to satisfy her home, work and friends. Back to her pre-marriage figure and brimming with excitement over the new projects she is working on, she appeared almost radiant in the A - line sea green shalwar kameez she had donned that day. As she arranged the cushions in her cheerful blue and yellow sitting area and squeezed in a hug or so with baby Noor-e-jehan every few minutes, she is a young woman completely in sync with everything. She talked of work pleasantly rather than ambitiously and described family lovingly rather than wishfully.
“I think I have it all. Of course there are still many projects I wish to initiate and many others I yet have to dream of, but like they say, ‘all in good time’. For now life is treating me well.”
When she made her debut on the fashion scene many years back, a thirteen year old waif with dusky looks and inches on the shorter side, her first fashion shoot for a newspaper, ironically passed nearly unnoticed. Luckily it was noticed by the soon-to-become-famous fashion photographers, Ather Shahzad. While Iffat was already an established model by the time A and S came across her, their lens led to a reincarnation of the fashion industry in general and Iffat in specific. It was Iffat who became their muse. Iffat, who with her natural tendency to flirt with the camera brought to life the raw talent of many a photographer. Iffat again who breathed life into Meeras’s Mughal collections as easily as she donned Calzooms. And of course Iffat who inaugurated the fashion segments of many a newspaper. At a time when Pakistan’s fashion industry was very much in its infancy, Iffat along with her counterparts turned a waddling modelling scene into a professionally run enterprise where reigning trends were studied and clothes understood much before the spotlights went on.
But like Aussie Nicole Kidman or Bombayite Juhi Chawla, Iffat soon came to realize that there is only so much modelling one can do.
“The need to develop both intellectually and emotionally has always been there within me and modelling never fulfilled this need. As a model, I learnt some important lessons; how to make it on your own, how to deal with bad pay masters, how to draw a line where need be. And best, it provided me with more fcthan any other profession would have. But after thirteen years of walking on the ramp, I just realized that there wasn’t much more I could learn here and hence decided to switch gears.”
Her first play was Nangay Paon and soon after, she was asked to host Yeh Hai Filmi Duniya and stayed with the programme for a grand total of 106 programmes. One of the bigger breaks in her television career came from Iffat’s Fashion Magazine, her directorial debut. As the first of its kind, IFM was a roaring success and is even today looked onto as the trendsetter for programmes like ZQ’s Montage, Natasha’s Star and Style, Farah Shah’s Yeh Hi To Hai Lollywood etc. Understandably so, Iffat’s first casual forays into the television world hooked her on to it forever. Those who have seen her evolve over the years feel that she is probably more accomplished as an actress than she is in the other arenas she insists on dabbling in, but Iffat has no such qualms and is happy doing it all from directing cum hosting Divas and Gurus on Indus Vision, to being a stock character in one of our longer running sitcoms Family Front.
In the long string of drama serials and other shows that Iffat has done, there are many that she regrets doing and a few she wishes she could do again. In the latter category falls Chand Chehray, one of the few programmes that Iffat personally dealt with from beginning to end involving the conceptualization, the pre production, the scripting, the choreography, the direction and even the hosting.
“Chand Chehray was truly my baby. The idea was to take thirteen of the most beautiful faces around us and film them in a completely novel manner. The women I ended up selecting included Sadia Imam, Aamina Haque, Sana, Reema etc and the programme was based on detailed interviews with these women interspersed with two of their favourite songs choreographed on them alone. One of the bigger highs of my career came when Raheel Rao called me up two weeks after airing this programme and told me that the ratings were far beyond what we had been expecting.”
But Chand Chehrey is now old news. Currently, Iffat is up to her elbows in the project she is working on. “It is a very different kind of show based on the lives and times of some of our biggest silver screen heroines. Though the programme is still in its initial stages, I can safely say that Kahani Us Parwarish Ki is my best work to date.”
Ever since her marriage, Iffat has been concentrating more on direction and production rather than acting and the reason for this can be summed up in one word — Omar.
“While my husband is very supportive, he doesn’t like the idea of my acting in plays and becoming someone else’s wife, girlfriend etc. And no, this doesn’t bother me for I entered marriage ready to understand and compromise. Despite my years of working in this field and the financial and independent life I had acquired much before my marriage, deep down I was never an independent woman. And even today I find it hard to relate to women who never want to get married for I at least have always felt the need of having my own family and a companion I can grow old with.”
With a wink, Iffat concludes;
“And don’t forget to mention that I want to make a film on Dastan-e-Amir-e-Hamza, our local Harry Potter.”
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