The maker of 'bold' movies such as Chetna (1970), Charitra (1971), Zaroorat (1973) and Kaagaz Ki Nao (1975) was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis, family sources said. He had just recovered from a debilitating paralytic stroke last year.
"Ishara was an iconoclast, a radical who made brave and unusual films and changed the rules of the game. He was a man with a world view, someone unafraid to try out new things. He exuded energy, vitality and also worked around the clock. But at heart, he was a faqir," says filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who consulted him while making Arth.
The writer-director with a distinct beard seldom worked with stars but created a bunch of them, giving breaks to a long list of newcomers: Anil Dhawan (Chetna), Parveen Babi (Charitra), Reena Roy (Zaroorat), Raj Kiran (Kaagaz Ki Nao) and several others. In Ek Nazar, he also directed Amitabh Bachchan before the actor found big success. Cricket lovers would also recall Test all-rounder Salim Durrani working for him in Charitra.
Ishara's life story is out of the Ripley's. Born as Roshan Lal Sharma in Himachal Pradesh's Una district, he ran away from home as a teenager to Bombay and started doing odd jobs in film studios. His new name, Babu Ram Ishara, emerged during his early years of struggle. He assisted Basu Bhattacharya in Teesri Kasam (1966), wrote the dialogues of Dulal Guha's hinterland hit Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke (1969) but became a much-discussed and debated figure after writing and directing Chetna, the 'adult' story of a young man falling in love and marrying a sex worker.
Laced with acerbic dialogues such as Maine itne nange mard dekhe hain ki mujhe kapde pehne hue mardon se nafrat ho gayee hai (I have seen so many naked men that I have started hating them in clothes) and a couple of scenes considered explicit in its time, the film became a sleeper hit. And a shot displaying the bare legs of heroine Rehana Sultan - she married Ishara later - like the alphabet 'v' turned upside down became an iconic cinematic moment of the 1970s.
Dhawan remembers fellow actor Shatrughan Sinha taking him to meet the director who was looking for a fresh face to play the film's lead. "We went to Bombay Lab in Prabhadevi. I got down from the car, walked up to him, shook his hand and introduced myself. He just took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, You are what I was looking for - a young man with an innocent face. Chetna was completed in 26 days and created box-office hungama," he recalls.
Ishara was always his own man. He loved shooting without chappals. From all accounts, he was also soft-spoken and patient. Durrani recalls taking 15 takes to get his first shot right. "But Ishara saab never lost his cool. During lunch break he just told me, speak your dialogues as if you are hitting a six," says the ace cricketer. Unfortunately, Charitra scored a duck at the box-office.
There was a Freudian streak in Ishara. In many films he made, sex is the primary form of negotiation for relationships whether at home or at work. But he also interrogated shifting morality and changing values in a materialistic society. His early films were often women-centric though it is possible to label some of his characterisations as exploitative.
He was a smart filmmaker too. Bhatt recalls that the director started the trend of shooting entire films in bungalows which was not only cheaper than erecting studio sets but also gave them a more realistic feel. In fact, Chetna begins with the declaration: This film was entirely shot on actual location. "He created his own economics of film-making,"says Bhatt.
Ishara was also a prolific filmmaker. Between the years 1972-74, he directed 12 films. Fond of reading and buying books, he continued to write and make films till the mid-1990s; his overall ouvre as a writer-director crossing 50. "His work indirectly led to the governmental guidelines addressed to the Censor Board (1979) directing the deletion of scenes which have the effects of justifying or glorifying drinking, vulgarity, obscenity and depravity," say Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen in Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema.
But then those were different days. As Dhawan aptly points out, "B R Ishara showed 40 years ago what filmmakers are doing today. He was ahead of his time."
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