Aparna Sen regrets rejecting Shyam Benegal’s ‘Ankur’, praises Shabana Azmi’s performance

In the 1970s, Shyam Benegal stood out as a pivotal figure in the parallel cinema movement, which introduced fresh ideas and aesthetics to Indian film. His debut work, ‘Ankur’, gained critical acclaim and marked Shabana Azmi’s entry into acting. Interestingly, she wasn’t Benegal’s original pick for the film, the director had initially approached Aparna Sen, but she chose to turn down the offer.During a recent interview on Straight Up with Shree, Aparna opened up about why she had turned down ‘Ankur’. The acclaimed writer-director admitted that her Hindi films didn’t perform well, saying that she never made them with the intention of becoming a mainstream heroine. “I was asked and I did it. The money was tempting. I think I needed the money for something or the other and unfortunately the choices that I made were very wrong. The choices in Bengal were very well-made but for Hindi films it was not well made. The films which I didn't make which I feel that I should have done… one was Shyam Benegal's Ankur,” she said. She continued, “He sent me a synopsis and it was written that she [the protagonist] would be speaking in Hindi with a dialect with spatterings of Telugu. I thought this is so far away and I was going to be the household help. This is not something I felt confident about. This was Shyam's first film and he asked a lot of people and had been turned down being a newcomer. I told that I loved the synopsis and story, but I don't think I will do it. He said, ‘Okay, fine. You just sent me the synopsis [back].’ He must have felt bad, but if he had said, 'Why'?' then I would have confided that I feel under-confident and he would have reassured me. But thank goodness that did not happen because Shabana [Azmi] was so good! We got an actress of Shabana's calibre!"In ‘Ankur’, Shabana Azmi played Laxmi, a woman whose life changes when she starts working as a maid for a landlord to support herself and her deaf‑mute husband, Kishtayya. The young landlord gets into an affair with Laxmi, causing a scandal in the small village. Shabana’s role was praised by critics, and she won the National Award for Best Actress for her performance.Over the years, Shabana Azmi and Aparna Sen went on to become friends. The two later worked together in films like ‘Sati’ (1989), directed by Sen, and the 2017 drama ‘Sonata’, where both shared the screen.