Shagufta Rafique

Biography:

Shagufta was a youngster who was adopted. Her parents are not known. Her foster mother was seeing a businessman from Kolkata, who, after his death, abandoned his second family. Shagufta had to begin helping the family at the young age of 11 by dancing at private parties after his untimely death plunged them into poverty. She received classical dance training from her mother as well. Rafique married a rich man when she was 17 in an attempt to gain some financial security, but their marriage did not work out.

After the breakup, she became a prostitute and then worked as a bar dancer to support herself. Before relocating to Dubai, she worked as a bar dancer in Bombay. Shagufta accepted the marriage proposal from a 25-year-old Pakistani fan who was 20 years her senior, but he passed away before the wedding could take place. As a result, she started writing and developed into a storyteller.

Shagufta first worked as a writer for eleven films at Vishesh Films, the production business owned by Mahesh Bhatt. She made her directorial debut with the Bengali action thriller Mon Jaane Na, which was released on Holi 2019, following a lengthy career as a writer and screenwriter.