Shabana Azmi: A leading actress who brought depth to her characters with grace and empathy

In the 1970s, when Hindi cinema was coming out of the chocolate box, an unconventional face emerged who ditched the bouffant and the pout to carve out a woman who refused to be a partner to a hero. Shabana was fortunate to step into the ‘New Wave’ when it was taking shape and found leading filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Gautam Ghosh, Basu Chatterjee and Mahesh Bhatt, who harnessed her talent to create an alchemy. Enhance. Of ideas on screen. Over the years, even though her films failed, Shabana always continued to shine.

Born to famous actor Shaukat and poet Kaifi Azmi, Shabana’s conscience was rooted in a home where progressive poetry and proletarian politics were in the air. If the poems of Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri settled in his young mind from the meetings held in the drawing room of Kaifi’s Janaki Kutir in Juhu, it was difficult to resist the strong realism of the play taking place next door to the iconic Prithvi Theatre.

strong presence

The liberal environment instilled in him the belief that the role of art is not merely to entertain. Having imbibed the spirit of the communist home from a very young age, it was not difficult for him to understand the value of collaboration, which essentially every permanent work of cinema demands. From his first appearance on screen sproutWhile young, urban Shabana immerses herself in the role of a Dakhini-speaking maid who is seduced into an illicit affair by her master, she sympathetically embraces the marginalized characters.

Shabana Azmi started her film career in 1974. sprout
Photo Courtesy: The Hindu Archives

Over the last five decades, Shabana has shown an amazing ability to make the mundane dramatic and the dramatic believable. She allows her characters to come to life and preserves what is left after her performances to inform the larger purpose of her existence, where art and activism mingle without prejudice. He once told this journalist, “Art also has the right to provoke.” By being vocal against all forms of injustice and bigotry, she became the voice of slum dwellers. She condemned the protests against Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali’s performance in Mumbai and was one of the first to criticize the fatwa issued against AR Rahman for scoring music in an Iranian film on Prophet Muhammad.

She is not a switch on, switch off kind of actress, she gives importance to training and rehearsal more than instinct. It’s hard to find a wrong note in her portrayal of the Carnatic singer morning melodyA performance that won him praise from sitar maestro Pt. Ravi Shankar. Very few people will remember that he sang ghazals for the character of Muzaffar Ali. Anjuman And presented Rabindra Sangeet at Aparna Sen’s place. sonata,

On the chess player’s set. Satyajit Ray explaining a scene to Shabana Azmi. , Photo Courtesy: The Hindu Archives

Shabana also has the ability to humanize the insecure woman who cringes at the idea of ​​sharing a loved one. They expressed different shades of this fear of the masks disintegrating chess player, Innocent, Pestonji, Muhafiz And spider With a touch of madness. She loves to drive home the specifics of her characters, deliberate on their human condition, place them in social context, and come back to deliver performances that are as beautiful as they are.

Here are five films that define his charisma.

Shabana Azmi. , Photo Courtesy: Shivakumar P.V

Earth (1982)

Mahesh Bhatt’s Meaning what’s the matter with Shabana Mother India Nargis had it. From a wife whose face turns pale at the thought of her husband leaving her for another woman to becoming a self-reliant woman, Shabana has portrayed Pooja with remarkable empathy and strength. Interestingly, this was one of those scenes where Bhatt did not allow Shabana to prepare and her spontaneous reaction to the stimulus still inspires awe.

The film gave him the opportunity to lip sync to his father’s songs – “Tum itna kyun musku rahe ho, kya gum hai jisko chupah rahe ho – which became an anthem for hurting souls.

Having grown up in a communist household, where everyday survival was hands-on but gender equality was a given, Pooja’s journey enriched Shabana’s understanding of Indian women. “When my poet father was not earning much, my mother used to work. this was when i did Meaning And when I played a character who refuses to accept her cheating husband even after he says sorry, I realized what a big step it is,” she had told this journalist in a previous interview.

The distributors felt that the ending would not work because it was too big a deal for an Indian man to say sorry and still not be accepted by his wife. The film did good business but soon Shabana started receiving letters from women feeling suffocated in married life. “The last thing I wanted was to be an anguished aunt but this film has proved cathartic for middle-class women who are yet to differentiate between a character and a real person.

Mandi (1983)

Shabana Azmi’s version of Rukmini Bai Market Still stuck after several decades. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

From sprout And Nishant To susman And lush greenShabana has been a constant in Shyam Benegal’s universe. Market Perhaps, this is the hardest thing they have done together. Playing the role of brothel madam Rukmini Bai, she plays both hunter and hunted, sharply satirizing the position of sex workers in society. Shabana gained weight for the role, developed a habit of chewing paan and visiting red-light areas to create a spunky character who becomes cunning, comical and stoic to survive in the squalor. We have many versions of Rukmini Bai but she is very popular in the market.

Paar (1984)

Shabana paired with Naseeruddin Shah across,

Along with Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana became one of the most iconic on-screen couples in the Indian film industry. From Touch And Innocent To Pestonji And DressBoth of them have created many magical moments on screen. But Gautam Ghosh’s dedication to bringing to life the plight of landless Dalit laborers across Remains unmatched. The 12-minute scene where Naurangiya and Rama lead a herd of pigs across a raging river is etched in the memory of cinema lovers. Their tiredness and happiness give goosebumps. Gautam Ghosh says, “It was an emotionally and physically difficult scene but Shabana and Naseer were tremendous.”

Khandahar (1984)

Mrinal Sen’s film is a great example of how Shabana presents the silences of her characters to the audience. Perhaps that’s why he’s a great choice for decoding literary works that don’t lend themselves easily to cinematic interpretation. Khandahar, B.Based on a Bengali short story by Premendra Mitra, Shabana’s Jamini depicts the ruins of relationships. Bound by duty and love for her ailing mother, surviving to see her daughter’s lover return, Jamini finds hope when a city-dwelling photographer enters her life but his gaze is also exploitative. Echoing the crumbling facade of the building, Shabana exposes Jamini’s mental architecture.

Shabana’s brilliant portrayal of Rambhi in Godmother earned her her fifth National Award for Best Actress. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Godmother (1999)

Throughout her astonishing career in parallel cinema, Shabana continued to search for a path that could connect her art with the reach of popular cinema. Early in her career, she worked with Manmohan Desai, but in his universe, she was far from a driving force. She impressed critics with her poignant portrayal of a selfless mother in a Bollywood melodrama. Avatar (1983) but it was Vinay Shukla’s godmother Which challenged him to create the ruthless Rambhi, a character who has an art house film background but gradually transforms into the avenger of a mainstream entertainer. It didn’t entirely fit into her worldview, but Shabana gave a stunning portrayal that won her her fifth National Award for Best Actress.

Shabana Azmi in film morning melody,