Shabana Azmi
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| Shabana Azmi | |
 Shabana Azmi in the film Sparsh |
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| Born | September 18, 1950 (age 56) New Delhi, India |
| Years active | 1974 - present |
| Spouse(s) | Javed Akhtar |
| Filmfare Awards | |
|---|---|
| Best Actress: Swami (1977) Best Actress: Arth (1982) Best Actress: Bhavna (1984) Lifetime Achievement |
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Shabana Azmi (Hindi: शबाना आज़मी, born 18 September 1950 at New Delhi, India) is one of the leading actresses of parallel cinema. She is a film actress as well as a social activist, and while her performances in films of a variety of genre have generally earned her praises and awards. Describing her performance in Ankur, Satyajit Ray, the legendary filmmaker of India, has noted: "in Ankur she may not have fitted immediately into her rustic surroundings, but her poise and personality are never in doubt. In two high—pitched scenes, she pulls, out the stops to firmly establish herself as one of our finest dramatic actresses".
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[edit] Early life
She was born on 18 September 1950, and her parents are Kaifi Azmi, a renowned Indian poet and writer of Urdu and Shaukat, a well known stage actress. She is a Muslim, and her brother, Baba Azmi, is a cinematographer. Her parents had an active social life, and their home was always throbbing with people and activities. Early in childhood, the environment in her home inculcated into her a respect for family ties, social and human values; and her parents always supported her to develop a passion for intellectual stimulation and growth.
She completed a graduation degree in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, followed by a course in Acting at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. She topped the list of successful candidates of 1972.
In the initial stage of her career, she was linked to noted film director Shekhar Kapur, but married Javed Akhtar, a famed lyricist, poet and scriptwriter of bollywood on 9 December 1984. It was Akhtar’s second marriage, the first being with the Bollywood scriptwriter, Honey Irani. He has always given her encouragements to stimulate her to grow independently
[edit] Career
Her first movie to be released was Shyam Benegal’s Ankur (1972), which won the national award. However, her first film was an art film, Faalsa, which was released after Ankur Her roles in both the films attracted positive comments both from the reviewers and the audiences. She received the national awards consecutively for three years from 1983 to 1985 for her roles in movies, Arth, Khandhar and Paar. Another film named Godmother (1999) brought her another national award taking her tally to five national awards.
Shabana’s acting has been characterized by a life like real depiction of the roles played by her. In Mandi she acted as a madam of a whorehouse, and to act this role she put on weight and even chewed betel. Real life like portrayals continued in almost all of her movies with a variety of roles, including a tragic role of a woman named Jamini resigned to her destiny in Khandhar, and a typical urban Indian wife, homemaker and mother in Masoom.
She also did many roles in experimental and parallel Indian cinema. Deepa Mehta’s 1996 film "Fire" depicts her as a lonely woman, Radha, in love with her sister-in-law. Radha being the name of a goddess and the subtle reference to lesbianism drew severe protests from many social groups of India, and also threats of ban by Indian authorities. Her role as Radha brought her international recognition with the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the 32nd Chicago Film Festival and Jury Award for Best Actress at Outfest, Los Angeles.
Shabana is one of the few Indian actors to have played her roles with a sense of sensitivity and reality, proving her range and power. Some of her noted films include Shyam Benegal’s Nishant (1975), Junoon (1978), Susman (1986), and Antarnaad (1992); Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi; Mrinal Sen’s Khandhar, Genesis, Ek Din Achanak; Saeed Mirza’s Albert Pinto Ko Guussa Kyon Aata Hai; Sai Paranjpye’s Sparsh and Disha; Gautam Ghose’ Paar; Aparna Sen’s Picnic and Sati; Mahesh Bhatt’s in Arth; John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka(1988), Roland Joffe’s City of Joy (1992); Vinay Shukla’s Godmother. Her other popular films include Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish (of Manmohan Desai) and Prakash Mehra’s Jwalamukhi.
Shabana’s debut to the small screen began with her acting in a soap opera with a cause, Anupama, that is, the unique or the unparallel. She did the role of a modern Indian woman who while endorsing the traditional Indian ethos and values negotiated more freedom for herself. She had also participated in many stage plays, and notable among them include M. S. Sathyu’s Safed Kundali (1980), which was a version of the Caucasian Chalk Circle; and Farouque Shaikh’s Tumhari Amrita, which ran almost five years. She toured Singapore for about a month on an assignment by the Singapore Repertory Company, doing role in Ingram Bergman’s adoption named Ibsen’s Doll House, which was directed by Rey Buono. Pointing out the differences in all these mediums, she once remarked that the threatre was really the actor’s medium; the stage was actor’s space; cinema was the director’s medium; and television was a writer’s medium.
Shabana Azmi has acted in over one hundred Hindi movies of different genres, mainstream, experimental and parallel Indian cinema; and many of her movies have been displayed at prestigious international centers including George Pompidou Centre (Paris), the Norwegian Film Institute, the Simthsonian Institution and the American Film Institute, Washington Pacific Cinematheque and Winnipeg Cinematheque. A number of her films have won international acclaim including John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka, Nicholas Klotz’s Bengali Night, Roland Joffe’s City of Joy, Channel 4’s Immaculate Conception, Blake Edward’s the Son of Pink Panther and Ismail Merchant’s In Custody.
[edit] Select filmography
She has acted in more than one hundred Hindi films, both in the mainstream as well as in parallel cinema. Several of her films have received attention in the international arena, including at the Norwegian Film Institute, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Film Institute.
- Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. (2006) - Nahid
- Umrao Jaan (2006) - Khannum Jaan
- 15 Park Avenue (2005) - Anjali "Anju" Mathur
- Morning Raga (2004) - Swarnlatha
- Tehzeeb (2003) - Rukhsana Jamal
- Godmother (1999) - Rambhi
- Earth (1998) - voice of older Lenny
- Side Streets (1998, Merchant Ivory Film) - Mrs. Chandra Bipin Raj
- Fire (1996) - Radha
- Saaz (1996) with Zakir Hussain
- Son of the Pink Panther (1993, by Blake Edwards) - Queen
- In Custody, (1993, by Ismail Merchant) - Imtiaz Begum
- City of Joy, (1992, by Roland Joffé) - Kamla Pal
- Madame Sousatzka, (1988, by John Schlesinger) - Sushita
- The Bengali Night (1988, by Nicolas Klotz)- Mrs. Sen
- Mandi (1983) - Rukmini Bai
- Masoom (1983, by Shekhar Kapur)
- Arth (1982) - Mrs. Pooja Inder Malhotra
- Sparsh (1980) - Kavita
- Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) - Khurshid, wife of Mirza
- Ankur (1974) - Laxmi
[edit] A social activist
Shabana Azmi has been a committed social activist, active in fighting AIDS and injustice in real life.
Shabana Azami is also a social activist and has voiced her opinion on a variety of issues. Initially, her activism drew skepticism and was dubbed as a publicity gimmick. However, she proved her critics wrong and used her celebrity status to emerge as a high-profile social activist. This began as a feeling of inadequacy in her, and "suddenly she felt almost perverse to win applause and accolade for representing a person on screen and ignoring her in real life".
She had participated in several plays and demonstrations denouncing communalism. In 1989, along with Swami Agnivesh and Asghar Ali Engineer, she undertook a four day march for communal harmony from New Delhi to Meerut. Among the neglected social groups whose causes she has advocated are slum dwellers, displaced Kashmiri migrants and victims of the earthquake at Latur (Maharashtra, India). The 1993 Mumbai riots appalled her and she emerged as a forceful critic of religious extremism. After the September 11 2001 attacks, she opposed the advice of an important religious leader calling upon the Muslims of India to join the people of Afghanistan in their fight by retorting that the leader go there alone. Her strong reaction encouraged other moderate Muslim leaders to counsel restraint and tolerance, and to shun terrorism.
She has campaigned against ostracisation of victims of AIDS. A small film clip issued by the Government of India depicts an HIV positive cuddled in her arms and saying: “She does not need your rejection, she needs your love”. In a Bengali film named Meghla Aakash she played the role of a physician treating AIDS patients.
[edit] Awards and honors
Shabana Azmi has received the coveted National Film Award for Best Actress (the Indian version of the Oscar) five times.
- 1984 - National Film Awards for Best Actress, Khandhar
- 1999 - National Film Awards for Best Actress, Godmother
She has also won four Filmfare Awards.
- 1977 - Filmfare Best Actress Award, Swami
- 1984 - Filmfare Best Actress Award, Bhavna
- In 1988, she was awarded the Padma Shri.
- In 1998, she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.
- In 2006, she was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for her work with the slum dwellers of Mumbai.
Shabana Azmi’s long association with movies and her performances in them, as also her work as a social activist and an active parliamentarian, had been well and widely recognized, including conferment with several awards. Other awards received by her include:
- Rajiv Gandhi Award (1994) for “Excellence of Secularism”
- Yash Bhartiya Award (1988) by the Government of Uttar Pradesh for highlighting women’s issues in her work as an actress and activist.
- The International Award for Best Actress for Gulzar’s “Libaas” in North Korea (1993), for Gautam Ghose’s “Patang” at the Taormina Arte Festival (1994) in Italy and for Deepa Metha’s “Fire” at the Chicago International Film Festival (1996).
- Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards, Best Actress (Hindi Movies) (1999) for Godmother
- Gandhi International Peace Prize (2006) awarded [1] by Gandhi Foundation, London.
Since 1989, she is a member of the National Integration Council headed by the Prime Minister of India; a member of National AIDS Commission (of India); and was nominated (in 1997) as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. UNFPA had appointed her as its goodwill Ambassador for India, and the Michigan University conferred (in 2002) on her the Martin Luther King Professorship award in recognition of her contribution to arts, culture and society.
Despite being successful and well known celebrity across several media, Shabana Azmi has remained in touch with the reality, and is perceived by many reviewers to live a life rooted to the grassroots, and this had been her forte to enact their lives in many roles which she had done on stage, movies and TV serials. This has been her inspiration to articulate the cause of the underprivileged and marginalized segments of the society.
[edit] Quotes
- "I am a daughter, a wife, a mother, a woman, an actress, an Indian, and a Muslim. Each of those identities is important to me."
- "That nations cannot be built on the sole basis of a commonality of religion was proved when Bangladesh became free. Since, however, India and Pakistan do exist, we should first try to work on the commonalties between them, rather than the differences. I would emphasize that in the new world of today, we should be thinking less in terms of the isolation of nations than what is in the common interests of whole regions."
- "Theatre is really the actor’s medium. When you go on stage, it is your space. Cinema is the director’s medium."
[edit] News and Inputs From Media
As part of the promotion for her film Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., she was asked about her own honeymoon. She supposedly said that she went to Pune with a couple of her girlfriends and that she has not yet had a formal honeymoon. She was supposed to have added that her husband Javed still owes her one.
[edit] Reference
- India’s 50 Most Illustrious Women (ISBN 81-88086-19-3) by Indra Gupta
[edit] External links
BBC's Noel Thompson interviews Shabana Azmi on Hardtalk on 2 October 2006
