The beautiful and dignified Rukhsar Rehman seems to be excelling in playing Muslim mother characters for the moment. After impressing one and all, with her mature and modern mother of 4 young women, in Alt Balaji show, Haq Se, she is now playing the mother of a dyslexic child in Star Plus drama Mariam Khan Reporting Live.
“One of the main reasons for choosing me as Madeeha Khan (Mariam’s mother) was not only my control over Urdu, but also my understanding of the Nawabi culture, which forms the bedrock of this Bhopal-based show. Similarly, it was my knowledge of Islamic and Kashmiri traditions and customs, which helped me get me the above web series.”
Returning to Mariam Khan, she says, “Since we are dealing with the very sensitive subject of dyslexia, we have handled it deftly. While there are a lot of emotional moments, we have not allowed the rona dhon to go overboard.”
Talking about raising special needs children, Rukhsar, who is a mother herself, says, “Every child is God’s gift; some come with certain extra challenges, which I will not call defects. It naturally becomes the responsibility of the parents to take care of them. Yes, it does involve extra care, but then mother is supposed to be God’s replacement on earth, right?”
As with every daily show, there are a host of secondary tracks which run concurrent with the main track. The Khan family has several other issues, apart from Mariam’s learning disorder- family property, legal issues and love problems of Mariam’s elder sisters.
“Madeeha is a very strong woman, who will do what it takes for the family. Despite being a loving wife, she tells her husband not to allow his idealism to destroy the family. This is also possible, for Majaz (Khalid Siddiqui) and Mariam are good friends as well,” adds Rukhsar, who has done several films (God Tussi Great Ho, The Stoneman Murders) and TV shows (Kuch Toh Log Kahenge, Tumhari Paakhi), over the years.
Rukhsar is enjoying working with child artist, Deshna Dugad, who plays Mariam. “Best part is that she knows her job, unlike other young kids.”
Rukshar has no major qualms about playing mother on screen. “I was the ammi of Surveen Chawla in Haq Se, but it is ok; that is my job.”
Talking about Haq Se, she says, “We had great fun shooting for it in Manali. The entire unit was a blast to work with.”
Will it come back with season 2 “While I think yes, given the way the first season wrapped up, the channel and production house will be in a better position to say if it will return or not.”
We wish her well.
