Shabana Azmi

All you want to know about Shabana Azmi

Shabana Azmi
शबाना आज़मी

Shabana Azmi at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 2006
Born September 18, 1950 (1950-09-18) (age 57)
New Delhi, India
Years active 1974 - present
Spouse(s) Javed Akhtar

Shabana Azmi (Hindi: शबाना आज़मी, born 18 September 1950 in New Delhi, India) is one of the leading actresses of parallel cinema. She is a film actress as well as a social activist, and her performances in films in a variety of genres have generally earned her praises and awards including five wins of National Film Award for Best Actress. She is married to Indian poet Javed Akhtar.

Contents

Early life

She was born on 18 September 1950, to parents Kaifi Azmi, a renowned Indian poet and writer of Urdu, and Shaukat Azmi, a well known stage actress. 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 Bollywood scriptwriter on 9 December 1984. It was Akhtar’s second marriage, the first being with the Bollywood scriptwriter, Honey Irani.

Career

Shabana and javed at the sony studio for a program
Shabana and javed at the sony studio for a program

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, made by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Faalsa, which was released in 1974. 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.

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 Theatre Company, doing role in Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Doll House, which was directed by Rey Buono. Pointing out the differences in all these mediums, she once remarked that the theatre 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.

Select filmography

Main article: Shabana Azmi 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. 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.

Social activism

Shabana Azmi has been a committed social activist, active in fighting AIDS and injustice in real life. Shabana Azmi has voiced her opinion on a variety of issues. Initially, her activism drew skepticism and was dubbed by some as a publicity gimmick. However, she proved her critics wrong and used her celebrity status to emerge as a high-profile social activist. However, her "fight for injustice in real life" began with her own injustice to the marriage of Javed Aktar and Honey Irani. She played the home breaker in that drama.

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 ostracism 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.

Awards and honors

National Awards

Azmi has received the coveted National Film Award for Best Actress, five times:

Filmfare Awards

She has also won four Filmfare Awards:

International awards

Other awards

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:

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 University of Michigan conferred (in 2002) on her the Martin Luther King Professorship award in recognition of her contribution to arts, culture and society.

Quotes

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
  • "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."
  • 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".

References

Awards
Filmfare Award
Preceded by
Rakhee
for Tapasya		 Best Actress
for Swami
1977		 Succeeded by
Nutan
for Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki
Preceded by
Padmini Kolhapure
for Prem Rog		 Best Actress
for Arth
1983		 Succeeded by
Shabana Azmi
for Bhavna
Preceded by
Shabana Azmi
for Arth		 Best Actress
for Bhavna
1984		 Succeeded by
Dimple Kapadia
for Saagar
Preceded by
Rajesh Khanna		 Lifetime Achievement
2005		 Succeeded by
Javed Akhtar
and
Jaya Bachchan
National Film Awards
Preceded by
Nandini Bhaktavalsala
for Kaadu		 Best Actress
for Ankur
1975		 Succeeded by
Sharmila Tagore
for Mausam
Preceded by
Rekha
for Umrao Jaan		 Best Actress
for Arth
1983		 Succeeded by
Shabana Azmi
for Khandhar
Preceded by
Shabana Azmi
for Arth		 Best Actress
for Khandhar
1984		 Succeeded by
Shabana Azmi
for Paar
Preceded by
Shabana Azmi
for Khandhar		 Best Actress
for Paar
1985		 Succeeded by
Suhasini Mani Ratnam
for Sindhu Bhairavi
Preceded by
Indrani Haldar
and
Rituparna Sengupta for
Dahan		 Best Actress
for Godmother
1999		 Succeeded by
Kiron Kher
for Bariwali

External links

v • d • e
National Film Award for Best Actress
1968-1970

Nargis Dutt (1968) · Sharada Urvasi (1969) · Madhabi Mukherjee (1970) ·
1971-1980

Rehana Sultan (1971) · Waheeda Rehman (1972) · Sharada Urvashi (1973) · Nandini Bhaktavalsala (1974) · Shabana Azmi (1975) · Sharmila Tagore (1976) · Lakshmi (1977) · Smita Patil (1978) · Sharada Urvashi (1979) Shobha (1980) ·
1981-1990

Smita Patil (1981) · Rekha (1982) · Shabana Azmi (1983) · Shabana Azmi (1984) · Shabana Azmi (1985) · Suhasini Mani Ratnam (1986) · Monisha Unni (1987) · Archana (1988) · Archana (1989) · Sreelekha Mukherji (1990) ·
1991-2000

Vijayashanti (1991) · Moyola Goswami (1992) · Dimple Kapadia(1993) · Sobhana (1994) · Debashree Roy (1995) · Seema Biswas (1996) · Tabu (1997) · Indrani Haldar / Rituparna Sengupta (1998) · Shabana Azmi (1999) · Kirron Kher (2000) ·
2001-present

Raveena Tandon (2001) · Tabu / Sobhana (2002) · Konkona Sen Sharma (2003) · Meera Jasmine (2004) · Thaara (2005) · Sarika (2006) · Priyamani (2007)
Persondata
NAME Azmi, Shabana
ALTERNATIVE NAMES शबाना आज़मी
SHORT DESCRIPTION Indian actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH New Delhi, India
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabana_Azmi"

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