‘My worldview has been wide from the very beginning’: In conversation with Omar Rahim

Omar Rahim impressed us significantly with his performance in Rubaiyat Hossain’s debut film Meherjaan which created quite a stir in the International Kolkata Film Festival 2011. With quite an illustrious background and a keen sense of cinema, Omar has arrived to stay. He is a rare combination of looks and talent. The sheer sensitivity with which he has essayed the role of the Pakistani soldier Wasim Khan in Meherjaan is evidence enough of his potential as an actor. Here is a candid conversation I had with him over e-mail a few days back.


Tell us something about your childhood.

I’m fortunate to have had both a desi as well as cosmopolitan childhood. I was born in Karachi. My family left for Abu Dhabi when I was two-and-a-half where we lived until I was ten. After a six-month stay in Karachi, we moved to New York, where I attended middle school and high school. While the atmosphere at home was quite grounded in South Asian culture – Urdu spoken at home, poetry, cinema and lots of inter-generational socializing – I learned to interact with people from different countries and cultures very early on. My classmates in primary school were from all over the world and even my middle school and high schools, despite being in the US, were very ethnically diverse. I think that has been a great gift. My world-view has been wide from the very beginning.

Apart from acting, what are the things that interest you?

I have had a career as a contemporary dancer and choreographer in the US and in Pakistan. I was a principal in a New York-based postmodern dance company by the name of Susan Marshall and Company right out of university. I have also enjoyed telling stories through movement as a choreographer. These days I am writing a screenplay – a contemporary story about creative artists trying to stay true to their voices in the face of commercialism in the arts/media space. Other than that, I like gardening, cooking, reading and staying active.

How did you get into acting?

I had been interested in the arts for as long as I can remember. I’ve acted in plays throughout my school days. In university I sharpened my focus on dance, and ironically, it was through the dance community that I was recommended for a cameo in a Universal Studios comedy called the Guru starring Kimi Mistry, Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei. My next major role came to me again due to my dance work – this time the music video for Zeb and Haniya’s Aitebar. I had choreographed and featured in the project and a classmate of Haniya Aslam’s from Smith College in Massachusetts was casting for Meherjaan. She sent me the treatment and I accepted the film on the basis of the film’s theme and point of view.

Did you take acting classes? How did you train yourself?

I did all sorts of arts, music, drama classes in primary school. In high school, I auditioned for a Performing Arts/Video production company – not unlike the program immortalized by the TV show Fame. I took classes in vocal singing, acting and even dance from New York City professionals through high school and also learned the basics of film-making – from writing and story-boarding to acting and directing for the camera, to editing and post-production. I have since taken acting classes in New York City and watch films and theatre as much as possible.

How was the experience on the sets on the first day?

Meherjaan was a first film for many of us. Although I had had a cameo in The Guru, Wasim Khan was my first principal role. It was also Rubaiyat’s first film as a director. As a result, the first few days of shooting were exciting if a bit loosely structured. Samiran Dutta, the very talented cinematographer of Meherjaan, sensitively led us through when we encountered a block.

Tell us about the films that you have done so far.

I played the Indian Prince in The Guru many years ago and most recently Wasim Khan in Meherjaan. I have acted in some shorts in the States and made a guest appearance in a Pakistani dramatic serial called Neeyat.

What kind of roles do you prefer the most?

I like complex roles that provide room to explore shades of grey in a character. That said, I have yet to do a comical role, which I think would be great fun!

Are you more into mainstream/commercial cinema or art-house cinema?

I have a great respect for mainstream/commercial cinema although I am probably more an art-house cinema person by temperament.

Tell us something about your fitness regime and grooming.

I stretch and do yoga quite regularly and also try to work out and swim at least once a week.


Do you have any aspirations of working in the Indian film industry, say in Mumbai? If so, name the filmmakers you would love to work with.

I would like to work in Mumbai. I have been to the magical metropolis twice and managed to meet some of the industry’s preeminent directors such as Vishal Bharadwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Nikhil Advani, and Vinay Shukla. I like their work as well the work of Zoya and Farhan Akhtar, Ayan Mukherjee, Dibaker Banerjee and Anusha Rizvi. There is great dynamism in the Mumbai-based industry and I would love to get involved.

Are you aware of the scene in Tollywood (Bengali film industry) at present?

I have seen some excellent Tollywood films and wish that I had learned Bangla/Bengali so that I might have been able to work in the industry! From Satyajit Ray, to Aparna Sen, to Rituparno Ghosh, I have always been deeply moved by the Bengali cinema.

Do you have any filmmaker in mind who you want to work with?

There are so many terrific filmmakers in India and I would be overjoyed to work in India!

"Meherjaan"

Director: Rubaiyat Hossain

Meherjaan, primarily a love story, is bitingly political; the setting of the film, the 1971 war involving East and West Pakistan, is a terrible historical milieu etched in blood in the collective consciousness of the people on both the sides. The film unearths those painful experiences amidst a lyrical rendition of a beautiful love story.
Meherjaan is saved by a Khan soldier of West Pakistan; and the latter, in turn, is given shelter by the girl. Caught in the dilemma of whether to betray her own nation by falling in love with the enemy, Meherjaan holds her emotion back for a long time. But, she does fall in love eventually: Wasim’s humanitarian world-view that calls into question the grand narrative of aggressive nationalism wins her over. The greater part of the rest of the film is devoted to help Wasim return to his country safely.
While Meherjaan’s personal world unwittingly merges with the political, the war grows more intense with each passing day. A new nation is about to be born, but the political vision of its makers is seriously challenged. Feudalism is soon to be replaced by a new social order that anticipates communism; but, the positive dimensions of feudalism cannot be totally ruled out. An affectionate zamindar, the father-figure of the unnamed village in the interiors of East Pakistan, becomes the principal target of the Peace Committee. Eventually, he is murdered, and the village is set afire. A new country is on the verge of birth, but the bloodbath that precedes it is grotesque.

And, of course, interspersed is the tale of the woman who loses her lover to partisan animosity, and is raped by the soldiers. These tales have been often deliberately evaded by history; nobody has ever bothered to record the trauma and the unspeakable suffering of these women molested brutally during the war. Neela’s daughter born out of rape comes back to Dhaka to research on these women to find very little.
Then there is Salma. Her world is confined to a huge wooden almirah; her fantasies, her dreams and all her idiosyncrasies play themselves out there. She is looking for her knight in shining armour, who, eventually, comes. One good thing is the film, despite the agonies and pains, it portrays is not too awfully dark.
One drawback of the film is that the screenplay is a tad convoluted. It could have been slicker. However, Meherjaan, like Guerrilla, deserves to be released commercially in Kolkata. Bangladesh art-house cinema is certainly going places. It’s time they got wider international recognition.