Who would have thought the no-nonsense, immensely practical and down-to-earth Shabana Azmi would openly exhibit her love for her distinguished, patrician looking husband, in a chat show? It was rather sweet though. Throughout Pooja Bedi���s chat show ���Just Pooja���, on Zoom, Shabana held Javed Akhtar���s hands, gently squeezing it from time to time.
Whenever she freed her hands to elucidate a point, Javed would quietly recapture them, once she had finished talking and had placed her hands next to his. Had this been a Kareena Kapoor ��� Shahid Kapur ���jodi���, the gesture would have been quite meaningless, merely yet another public display of their giddy infatuation. But this was Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi.
Two enormously talented veteran artists, who���ve had a profound impact on the evolution of Hindi movies, and are synonymous with quality cinema. And they���ve built themselves a formidable reputation as responsible citizens, with Javed Akhtar keeping the torch of secularism burning high, and his wife making her voice heard for women���s empowerment. So, when two of Bollywood���s eminent intellectuals decided to let down their guard and confessed about what it was that made their marriage tick, it was definitely worth a watch. Some interesting revelations garnered from their homily (but prior to that it needs to be mentioned that this was primarily Javed Akhtar���s interview, with Shabana Azmi throwing light on her husband as a spouse):Drop!When Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar get into a heated argument and realize they aren���t getting anywhere, or as Azmi said in the chat show, their views are non-negotiable, all Akhtar has to say is ���DROP���! Which is a signal the couple have evolved, to resolve all potentially damaging rows. Minute the word is uttered, Azmi, drops the argument, then and there. They might decide to move into separate rooms to cool off, and when they meet afterwards, which might be as soon as 15 minutes later, neither brings up the topic again.That does not mean that they don���t resort their differences. Smothering all burning issues with the cloak of diplomacy obviously cannot work in the long run. Instead they sort out their ideological differences only when they are both sure they can argue rationally, without getting emotionally charged about the issue.In Transactional Analysis, a behavioral science, this is called an ���Adult ��� to ��� Adult��� transaction. Transactional Analysis or TA analysis behavior through three ego states: the Parent, the Child and the Adult Ego States. The Parent Ego state reacts as a parent would: it commands and expects to be obeyed; its vocabulary is typically words like, ���you ought to���, or ���you should���. A Child Ego state reacts as one would have as a child. One feels hurt and helpless or a joyous glee, depending on the circumstances. Between a couple, arguments are invariably a result of one half of the couple speaking from the Parent Ego State and the other responding from his or her Child Ego.The healthiest way of resorting such conflicts is as Azmi and Akhtar have shown, by switching over to one���s ���Adult Ego State���. In this state you react to situations rationally, and most importantly, respond to the immediate situation at hand without going back to what had happened in the past (one chasm all couples need to avoid; the blaming game spirals out of control the minute one drags in instances from the past to justify one���s stand). An objective appraisal of reality is the hallmark of the Adult Ego state.Mirror imagesThey say a sign of a happy married life is that the couple begins resembling each other more and more as the years roll by. A popular marriage aphorism is that along with graying hair and increased girth, as a couple cross their silver anniversary they start to look like siblings! While that is quite an exaggeration, happily married couples do end up swapping each other���s traits and preferences. In ���Just Pooja���, Azmi says that while all these years she had been the vociferous half of the pair, it was now quite the reverse. She laughed and said that one had to just utter the words ���religious fundamentalism��� and it was as if a button had been pressed. Her husband would immediately launch into a passionate plea for secularism. The media knew Azmi as the vocal social activist, but it was her husband who was now in the forefront whenever there was a threat to secularism (like in the recent Varanasi blasts). Azmi then went on to tell Pooja Bedi that with each passing year it seemed as if they were becoming more like each other.Mr and Mrs Ray* have been been married 26 years. Mrs Ray is an extrovert, loves traveling and socializing. Mr Ray is a scholarly gentleman. A bookworm, he is happiest as he says, ���in my room, reading a book, or writing...��� When the couple went to Mussorie for a short holiday, Mrs Ray happened to meet a college friend in the mall. They were meeting after 25 years. They were both very excited and her friend made Mrs Ray promise that she and her husband would come home for dinner. Mr Ray wasn���t too excited about spending an evening, dining with strangers. Mrs Ray could have insisted her husband accompany her, or she could have gone for dinner alone, or she could have stayed back and grumbled all evening about it. What she chose to do was quite remarkable. She chose not to go, and was happy with her decision. And why? Because she was looking forward to finishing the Ruskin Bond anthology she had expressly picked up to read on this trip. So husband and wife spent a cosy evening sipping liquor, reading and chatting, and then going out for a leisurely after-dinner stroll.Psychologists say we often seek for mirror images of ourselves in our partners. Physically attractive people are drawn towards partners who are also good looking. This is of course the obverse of ���opposites attract��� theory. How else would one explain a Salman Rushdie ��� Padma Laxmi romance!Championing his causePooja Bedi asked Akhtar that if he could, what difference would he want to make to society. Akhtar said that as an individual there was very little he could do, but if he could reach out to even 10 people, he would entreat them to jealously guard our secular polity. Whereupon an agitated Azmi interjected her husband, reprimanding him for hiding his light under a bushel. ���No, no Javed���, she protested. ���Your ���Muslims for Secular Democracy��� has done so much, has made such a difference...��� She went on to stress all that the organization has done. For a moment, she became the spokesperson for ���Muslims for Secular Democracy���. She knew how deeply committed her husband was to secularism and how much the movement spearheaded by the organization meant to him. So while giving each other space is fine, espousing your partner���s pet cause and believing in it wholeheartedly could go a long way in building a more fruitful relationship that is deeply fulfilling at an ideological level. The Mathurs * are as different from one another as chalk and cheese. While Mrs Mathur is a confirmed atheist who treats all godmen as charlatans, her husband has recently become a devout Sri Sri Ravi Shankar devotee. Close friends of the Mathurs say they were quite amused by the sudden reversal in Minky���s (Mrs Mathur���s pet name) beliefs. Not only did she accompany her husband to The Art of Living Classes, she became a walking billboard for its classes, advocating its benefits to anyone who cared to listen.Ek ladki ko dekha...A couple of years ago, Javed Akhtar was a much feted guest at a high profile social do abroad, attended by the elite NRIs of New York. After the mandatory round of ���shairo shayri���, one socialite coyly told Akhtar that she greatly admired his ���ek ladki ko dekha���, the song he had composed for ���1942, A Love Story��� and wanted to know who had inspired him to pen such lyrical poetry. The middle-aged poet unabashedly said that he had written the song for his wife.Arnav De* and his wife Smita are approaching 60. De likes to present his wife with pretty accessories like sequined silk ���batuas��� and lovely sea-shell necklaces bought from Fisherman���s Cove, Chennai. The De���s married daughter dropped in one evening and found her mother sporting blood red toe nails. Rather startled by her mother���s sudden preference for virulent colours (she always wore bronze or subdued maroons on her toes and pastel shade sarees) she was curious to find out what had brought about the change. Rather embarrassedly Smita De told her daughter that the nail varnish had caught her dad���s eye in the supermarket and he insisted that she would look gorgeous in it. It seems he kept hounding her until she finally went ahead and painted her nails. Sushmita De, their daughter says, her father���s eyes still light up whenever her mother dresses up for a dinner date. To him, her mother is still the beautiful girl he wooed over three decades ago. In fact, Sushmita says jokingly, ���the song ���ek ladki ko dekha to aisa laga��� should be my dad���s anthem for mom!���For all those cynics who never get tired of laughing uproariously at ���marriage is a three ring circus: an engagement ring, the wedding ring and suffering��� , Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi���s blooming romance post 50 should be quite an eye-opener. * Names have been changed on request. 
