How a stubborn Sunerah made it to an Ecstasy billboard!

Sunerah Binte Kamal came to the limelight after the movie No Dorai was released last year. This movie changed her life overnight. 

She now regularly gets offers to do films. If there was no pandemic now, there would have been a few announcements by now. Instead, she is now concentrating on reading scripts. 

The Business Standard talked to her recently. When she was asked how she came to the entertainment world, she went back to her past. "It is an interesting incident. My mother admitted me to Bafa (Bulbuli Academy of Fine Arts) in music and drawing classes in my childhood. But I was interested neither in music nor in drawing. After one month of the admission, my mother went there to give the monthly fees and learnt that I was not going to music and drawing classes. I was attending the dance class. Then my mother did not force me against my will. Later, I became an enlisted dancer of Bangladesh Television. I used to do programmes in BTV regularly."

Sunerah has been brought up in Dhaka. She studied at Scholastica School in Uttara. She got interested in photoshoots during her school life. 

Fashion and lifestyle brand Ecstasy was located beside her school. There was a big billboard of Ecstasy. One day, when Sunerah was passing by the billboard, one of her friends threw a challenge to her saying, "Will you be able to become a model of Ecstasy in your life?" Then Sunerah made a promise to herself that if she becomes a fashion model, she will start her journey with Ecstasy. At the time she was studying for her O levels.    

Within a short time, she became renowned as a ramp model. She started to get offers of modeling for apparel brands. But she stuck to her promise of starting her journey with Ecstasy and refused those offers. 

Sunerah said, "I am very stubborn. If I make up my mind to do something, I will do that."
  
In 2011, when she was taking preparation for O level examinations, she participated in a ramp show in Hotel Radisson Blu Dhaka Water Garden. After that she got many offers for modeling, but like before she did not accept any. After completing her O level, she did a photo shoot for an English magazine. She did it as it was for a magazine. It was her first professional photo shoot. 

Then how did she win the challenge? Sunerah went on telling the story, "One of my well-wishers told me one day that if I am really interested in fashion modeling, I should learn it from a choreographer. So I went to choreographer Mukul bhai. At the time, Tanjim bhai, owner of Ecstasy, was searching for models for his brand.  Through Mukul bhai, I contacted him. Tanjim Bhai called six models and I was one of them. After talking to me, he said he would call me later.  Then he called me for a photo shoot. But after the photo shoot, Tanjim bhai did not tell me anything." 

What happened next was more interesting. One day, Tanjim called Sunerah to meet him at Bashundhara City. When she went there, Tanjim took her in his car. After driving for a few minutes, he stopped the car and told Sunerah to look above. Sunerah surprisingly found that her photo was on a billboard of Ecstasy at an intersection. At last, her dream came true. Then she signed a contract of two years with Ecstasy.

Sunerah said, "My friends and people surrounding me threw different challenges to me, such as, I would not be able to do this or that. Then I threw challenges to myself and I achieved my goals. I am actually grateful to those people."

Sunerah is now serving as the apparel manger and in-house stylist of Ecstasy. Apart from that, she also looks after Ecstasy's creative branding and marketing. 

She also has performed in several music videos. This year, she worked in a play titled Closeup Kache Ashar Golpo.

Sunerah said, "As I have entered the world of acting, I am willing to play any kind of character. But it should be in any movie or series."

If everything goes well, viewers may get news of her new movies very soon.