
Meeting Madiha Iftikhar is like taking a fleeting trip down memory lane. The mind flits through scenes from TV dramas from more than a decade ago. Back then, Madiha was one of TV’s most popular leads; a long-haired, sylph-like beauty with a very busy roster. She is still just as striking but, sitting across from me today, she has progressed to different TV avatars now: namely, an impoverished, sly, wheeler-dealer in one drama and, in another, an evil, scheming phupho[paternal aunt].
One of the first things that come to my mind is that Madiha, with her years of experience and her looks, shouldn’t be relegated to mere phuphoroles. “But this isn’t just any phupho role,” she points out to me. “The character has given me so much margin to perform. The two dramas that I acted in last year — Ghair and Baby Baji Ki Bahuwein — marked my comeback into TV acting and my priority was that I should get noticed.
“Yes, they were negative roles but they were both pivotal to the story. And people have been telling me that they have been enjoying seeing two different types of negative people, both played by me!”
She adds: “There were other roles that were offered to me and some of those dramas turned out to be big hits. For instance, I was offered a character in Ishq Murshid but, while that drama became a success, the character that was offered to me ended up being completely forgettable. So, I think I made the right decisions.”
Coming back to acting
Her comeback to TV dramas comes after a decade-long sabbatical. Madiha got married and moved to Dubai and opted to take a break from TV.
Madiha Iftikhar was at the top of her game as a lead television actress when she left to live the married life. Now, a decade later, she has decided to step back into acting with two negative roles. She says finding characters that are memorable and allow her to perform is more important than playing the protagonist. But why has she decided to stage a comeback?
“Before I got married, I would be working constantly,” she recounts. “I have worked in over 500 dramas. Back then, there were different drama formats on TV — soaps, serials, telefilms, long dramas, Eid dramas, Ramazan plays, late night plays — and I just wanted to work constantly. I started acting at the age of 17 and got married at 29. By then, I was ready to just sit at home and enjoy having nothing to do. I had already got all that I could possibly want: fame, fans, money. Now, I was content to just maintain my marriage in a certain way.”

She adds, laughing, “This doesn’t mean that I was just sitting around, doing nothing for 10 years! I was a familiar face and brands in Dubai started approaching me for social media collaborations and promotions. I was one of the very first vloggers to create content for YouTube in Pakistan.
“Back then — in 2016 — Nadia Khan [former morning show host] was also living in Dubai and she and I started the YouTube channel ‘Outstyle with Nadia and Madiha.’ We would go to different restaurants and malls and make videos. The channel was entirely my concept and I was also spending a lot of time getting the videos edited or editing them myself.
“Some time later, though, Nadia had to go back to Pakistan for a project and, in 2018, I worked on my first acting role after marriage, a drama called Mera Haq for Geo Entertainment. We were both travelling back and forth and our dates often wouldn’t match. Also, there are times when I get very laid back and don’t want to do anything for months. Eventually, I told Nadia that she could go ahead with the YouTube channel on her own.”

And then, eventually she decided to make a full-fledged return to acting. Did she call her acquaintances in the industry and tell them that she was ready to make a return?
“Yes,” she says. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, my husband and I made Karachi our homebase for some time, because we wanted to be close to family. That’s when I decided that I should start acting again and I reached out to people who I thought were my ‘friends’.”
She makes quotation marks with her fingers as she says the word ‘friends’. “They told me that they’d see and I let it go at that. I had already reached out to them and it was up to them to get back to me now.”

Did it hurt her when a lot of these people didn’t end up reverting? “Of course, I felt very sad. How could this happen? Were these people actually like this? I think that it hurt more because, all my life, I had set goals in life and got whatever that I had wanted. I had planned my comeback with the same mindset and, when things didn’t go smoothly, I cried a lot.”
She continues: “But then I turned to God. I started praying five times a day and looked towards translations of the Holy Quran for answers. Sometimes, miracles would happen. I would be worrying about something and I would open the Holy Quran and suddenly the answer would be before me. For a moment, I would be shaken that God was connecting with me directly. And within a week of turning to prayer, I got some interesting acting offers!”
Madiha muses, “In retrospect, I am glad that I went through that low phase and got to see the true faces of the people around me. I can see through the people around me now and I know that there can be no true friendships in this industry.”

She smiles. “When the role in Ghair was offered to me, they said that they wanted only me to play the character and that I needed to trust them and see how successful it would be. When someone gives you that much respect, you want to give them your 200 percent rather than just your 100pc. I remember stepping into the producers’ office — the Six Sigma Plus building — and I bumped into Sajal Aly there. She met me with so much warmth. When someone who is now playing the lead roles that you once used to play meets you like that, your heart just gets bigger.”
I remind her: Ghair may have hauled in high ratings but her character’s evil tendencies do veer into deeply problematic territory, such as her character suggesting that her niece commit suicide in order to get the man that she loves. “So, she’ll pay for what she’s done,” says Madiha. “You’ll see, as the story progresses.”

It’s the classic answer given by any actor playing a problematic role on TV. Offers from major production houses are often few and far between and actors usually can’t get entire storylines changed in order to eliminate certain aspects of their characters.
A different childhood
We continue discussing her return to TV, which was clearly an uphill struggle for Madiha. Does she regret now that she took a sabbatical when her career was peaking?
“I do think that if I had been more career-oriented, I would have been at a different position right now,” she says. “And I realise now that I was always meant to meet my husband and be married to him. He encourages me to follow my dreams and not halt my career for him. When I was younger, half my attention was diverted towards my career and, the other half, on getting married. I wish that I had been a more pivotal part of my parents’ efforts for helping out the hearing impaired.”
Madiha’s parents, of course, are Iftikhar Ahmed and Rehana Iftikhar, the couple renowned for the PTV shows Boltay Haath and Ishaaron Ki Zubaan, based on sign language for mute and deaf people. “I am incredibly proud of my parents,” she smiles. “My father is considered the pioneer of sign language and, as we grew up, my sisters and I started using sign language alongside speaking our first words.
“My father was deaf while my mother was normal and they helped out so many people. My father’s way of communication was so easy that you didn’t even need to know sign language to understand what he was trying to say. He was also very knowledgeable and he raised me and my sisters to similarly value education. He would make us travel on rickshaws, buses, Vespas, preparing us for whatever life could throw our way. And he made sure that we were confident, secure individuals.
“My father has passed away but, recently, I took my mother to Dubai with me and people would recognise her before me. My achievements are nothing compared to what my parents have achieved through their services.”
She continues: “I sometimes see how children of hearing-impaired people get embarrassed of their parents. I see them getting frustrated. In our case, just our father was deaf but in families where both parents are affected, the children find it hard to handle everything. We never felt that way. In fact, I would feel proud of introducing my father to people because they would react with awe, recognising him as ‘Iftikhar sahib’!
“Those were good times,” she reminisces. “Back then, PTV would dedicate screen time to educational content and, now, our private TV channels are more focused on churning out saas-bahu [mother-in-law-daughter-in-law] content!”
Has she pitched educational content to present-day TV channels? “Yes, but they haven’t been interested so far,” she shrugs. “Every major network has channels dedicated to news, dramas, cooking and then another, for airing reruns of old dramas. But no one wants to focus on educational or children’s content.”
Dramas, then and now
Till TV channels choose to diversify their content, Madiha is on board the drama bandwagon. What has been her favourite project so far?
“Probably my very first project, Partition Ek Safar. I was 17 at the time and, in that one drama, my character progressed from a young girl to an old woman. It was a high-budget production by Geo Entertainment and the cast included Indian, Pakistani and Bengali actors. We shot in different locations and there were even six songs in the drama! It was such an exciting project to work in.
“The shooting extended for three years and I would have a personal tailor and four make-up artists on location. I felt like a princess and I assumed that all drama shoots would be like this. I only later realised that things were quite different on other sets.”
She says this with a wise smile which leads me to ask: have drama shootings now become more efficient? “Not really,” she says. “I think everyone is in a hurry these days. Back then, there was one drama assistant while now there are three drama assistants on every set and, yet, they don’t remember continuities. They won’t remember that we have to wear certain clothes in a scene that is supposed to follow an earlier one. Usually, we are the ones reminding them, but it isn’t our job. The day we forget, characters’ hairstyles or the clothes often change within a single scene.” She adds, “The assistant directors in Ghair, though, were great.”
She continues: “My make-up artist in Partition Ek Safar was Saima Waseem, who is now an established director. She trained with different make-up artists and would refer to books in order to create looks for my character, ranging from the ‘60s and ‘70s, till I was playing an old woman in the 2000s. That’s how well-researched things used to be!”
There’s more: “I also see a lot of actors backing out of the dates that they have given to a drama shoot when another project or an ad comes up. I was so committed that, if a date was confirmed by me, I wouldn’t change it even if another very attractive project was offered to me. I sometimes think about all the great projects that I ended up not being part of and wonder if I should have also switched about dates similarly.”
I ask: is the payment process at least more efficient? “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Payments do come but sometimes they get so delayed that I get exasperated. It’s not in my nature to be rude or fight but all I can do is remind production houses.”
Everyone needs to be paid for their efforts but, ultimately, is Madiha presently focused on finances or on fulfilling her passion for her craft? “Passion,” she answers.
Which means that we will soon be seeing her in some more interesting roles? Maybe some positive as well as negative characters? “I hope so. I am getting offers. I am open to playing characters that allow me to perform, regardless of whether they are good or evil. I am excited about what’s to come.”
She’s invested years of her career in playing the good heroine. And she’s done a fine job recently as the vamp. She can well look forward with excitement because, at heart, Madiha Iftikhar’s a pro.
Published in Dawn, ICON, January 19th, 2025
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.