I am finally on Twitter: Shabana

Shabana Azmi, contrary to her ‘serious’ image that has stuck on, is all giggles. “Accha before we talk about anything else, I must tell you ke mere husband ko bhi ab doctorate degree mil gayi hai. Even he will be addressed as a ‘Doctor’ now,” informs Shabana.
Talking about her fracture, she says, “I’m supposed to get the plaster removed on April 26, but I was trying to get it removed before that so I could go for the premiere of It’s A Wonderful Afterlife.But the doctor is not very forthcoming. I have been re-cast!” she laughs. “Although, I must tell you that I have become such a pro at manoeuvring in a wheelchair. I actually look like one of those people on the road who sing hume bheekh na do hume pyaar chahiye! And trust me, this whole time of forced rest has been a blast. I really needed a break and this was the perfect time. The other day, some friends came over looking very sympathetic, and they felt really bad for me. Only, they didn’t know I was out shopping on a wheelchair. They almost fainted,” she adds with further bouts of laughter.
Shabana’s next is Gurinder Chadha’s comedy, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife. “The movie has a delicious Hindi title called Hai Marjaawa. This film is brand Gurinder at her wackiest, and that’s the best way of describing her. A lot of people in the UK can relate to the genre of the film because Ealing comedy is made a lot there. This is the type of comedy that not just is witty, but also has subtle horror and many other undertones of emotions. So I am hoping that this film will work in India as the new genre. When we decided to dub for the Hai Marjaawa version, we earlier decided that I would totally speak in Punjabi. So I learnt Punjabi for it.
And then it was decided that it was becoming too Punjabi for the Hindi audiences... so he dubbed it again in Hindi. But again, nothing goes waste. Agar mujhe Hindi cinema se nikaal diya toh mein Punjabi cinema mein jaa sakti hoon,” she jokes. Shabana also put on 25 kilos for the film. “I haven’t told anyone this,” she says, “but my cholesterol, my tri-glyceroid and my thyroid levels went shooting up. And my doctor was so angry with me. He said that this was an insane thing to do, and today there are body suits available, so why did I do something crazy like that? I’ll tell why I did it, I didn’t realise how dangerous it would be for me. I told my doc very cheekily that I did it in Maandi. So he told me that I was 25 years younger, and now my entire body constitution has changed. But gaining the extra pounds gave me the joy of eating samosas and bhel-puri. I live for it!”
Gurinder, in one of her recent interviews, called Shabana the Meryl Streep of India. “Of course, it is a huge compliment, but I like to take it with a pinch of salt. This nomenclature has been used a lot for me, and I guess this is only a way of explaining to people what kind of an actor you are to those who don’t watch a lot of Hindi cinema,” she explains. Shabana is also a new entrant on Twitter. “Yes, I am finally on Twitter. I’m not tweeting every two seconds because I still haven’t figured out a lot of things. But even so, it is quite heartening, because suddenly you are in direct contact with people who know you.”
Apart from the movie, Shabana will also be seen in the play, Broken Images. “It is written by Girish Karnad and directed by Alaque Padamsee. And what is interesting is that Padamsee had directed my mother 40 years ago. He remembers me just as this little girl around my mother.”
As an actor, Shabana feels that every actor should be insecure so as to get better with every movie. “Of course actors are very insecure, and they always look to the director for approval. Jaise chhota baccha apni maa ko dekhta hai doodh ke liye... I heard this hilarious story, an actor like Dustin Hoffman, when he heard the director saying, ‘Ok, next shot please!’ he would go to the director and say, ‘Oh, you didn’t like the shot, shall we do another one, one more time please?’ So the director had to compliment him even if in the shot Dustan had to just say, ‘Hi.’ So aise hote hai actors!”
There are many things in life that Shabana hasn’t ever shied from talking about. One such thing is her marriage to Javed Akhtar, and how Farhan and Zoya came to terms with it. “First of all, I’ll give 100 per cent credit to Honey (Irani), because what she did was to rise above her hurt and not colour her children with it. Farhan and Zoya were really young when Javed and I got married. Honey also sent them with Javed and me to London for a holiday, they used to come to the house and she did not say anything negative. I really respect her for that, and trust me, I never pushed. I knew it was a tough situation for them. All I could do was to give them unconditional love. So, because I didn’t push or try to get intimate, and Honey was so generous, this relationship of mine with both the kids is so beautiful. I remember little Zoya asking me where I was going when I was about to step out for some demonstration against communalism. And she said, ‘Why are you going for it?’ I told her I was going to raise awareness about it. So she asked me, ‘But do you think that your marching on the streets will make it stop?’ I told her, ‘Nahi, I don’t think so. So she said, ‘Then what is the purpose?’ it was such a cute conversation, I have written about it also.”
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