Shabana Azmi: “Women are shown working in mainstream films aren’t just bimbettes”

By Jyothi Venkatesh

“Women are shown working in mainstream films aren’t just bimbettes,” told SHABANA AZMI to JYOTHI VENKATESH in this interview to Gulf News way back 20 years ago. I wish Shabana Azmi a very happy birthday and also we at Cine Blitz reproduce this interview on the occasion of her 74^th birthday on September 18 this year.

Shabana Azmi, who has worked with foreign directors like John Schlesinger (Madame Sousatzka co-starring Shirley Mclaine), Roland Joffe (City of Joy, co-starring Patrick Swyaze) and Tony Gerber (Side Streets) has come a long way ever since she had made her debut with Shyam Benegal’s Ankur 50 years ago.

Says Shabana, “I am lucky that I have been getting challenging roles in the last few years. Like Deepa Mehta’s Fire, Khalid Mohammad’s Tehzeeb, Prakash Jha’s Mrityudand and Mahesh Dattani’s Morning Raga. Even ten years back, I couldn’t have dreamed that Hindi Cinema could offer me several possibilities as an actor.”

According to Shabana, Morning Raga was a film, which will elevate you to greater heights. “Every generation will find the film acceptable. My role in Morning Raga is entirely different from my role in Saaz or for that matter Tehzeeb though I play a singer in all the three films. In Saaz, two sisters were rivals as far as their career was concerned. Earlier women used to have rivalry not as far as their career was concerned but for the sake of a man. In Tehzeeb, I played a mother whose daughter complains to her that she is neglecting her family for the sake of the career whereas in Morning Raga I forsake everything for the sake of the family.”

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Shabana adds. “Morning Raga is an attempt to bridge the contrasting worlds; The Bridge is becoming metaphorically more and more possible because India is a country, which has lived several centuries. Indians encapsulate all contradictions. The film in reality should have been in both English and Telugu but in order to reach a wider audience, we had to make it in English. K. Raghavendra Rao has produced the film. Hamlet wouldn’t have been known all over the world if he didn’t speak in English.”

The best thing that has happened in recent years according to Shabana is that the producers, distributors and the exhibitors have started realizing that one need not still concentrate on making a film which will be liked by everyone from Mumbai to Kanyakumari and hence cater to the lowest common denominator. “Today is the time for catering to a niche audience. Today 50% of the cine-goers we have in our country are below 25. Films of every genre will run provided it is good. I am glad that we are giving the West a run for their money. It is wonderful we have films like Morning Raga which cater to alternative sensibility”

Shabana is happy that as far as filmmaking goes, we are entirely at the mercy of the corporate companies. “The fact is that today technology has made it possible to access even those areas which weren’t available earlier as far as exploitation was concerned. The irony we face today as far as small but good non star cast films is that though they need the help of the sponsors badly, the sponsors go in only for the kind of films which are being made by say a Yash Chopra or a Subhash Ghai, though in reality they do not need sponsors.”

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Shabana is frank enough to admit that today we have to bother about more vital issues, which are more critical than vulgarity on television or movies. “It isn’t a proper recourse to ban a movie to prevent vulgarity. You can only balance by counter images to stop vulgarity. As far as censorship is concerned, all that I’d say is that I am not in favor of four people deciding on the morality of 3 crores of cine-goers in our country. We shouldn’t forget that the Censor Board is called the Central Board of Film certification and not the Censor Board. It is a tragedy that we have aped the British format of censors instead of following the American way where the filmmakers are asked to delete the scenes that they consider unsuitable.”

Not many are aware of the fact that Shabana had turned down the offer to be made the Censor chief before Asha Parekh decided to step in a few years ago.

When asked about the moratorium imposed by the Karnataka government against the release of non-Kannada films for three weeks all over Karnataka, Shabana says. “We feel heart-broken at the moratorium imposed by the government of Karnataka and the embargo on the release of non-Kannada films till three weeks after they are released in the rest of the country. We appeal to the government as well as the people of Karnataka to withdraw this draconian law. It isn’t a good way of encouraging the local cinema.”

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As an actor, Shabana emphasizes that it has been her earnest endeavor never to let herself be complacent. “I try to work hard and take every part that I play to inhabit another character to enrich my life. Ideally I’d like to play the person that I am, with urban sensibilities rooted to me. Women are shown working in mainstream films. They aren’t just bimbettes. I had always taken care to show a working woman who is always invisible in Hindi Cinema. To bring visibility to the working woman, I opted to play a career woman in most of my films till date. 25 years ago, though their roles were very minuscule; the heroines in Salim -Javed films were strong individuals”

Shabana denies the myth that she abhors working in mainstream films. “It isn’t true that I am against mainstream commercial films. If today I get the right role, I’d be certainly happy to work in a hard-core commercial mainstream film too. I have acted in films like Amar Akbar Anthony, Jwalamukhi and Pravarish. Haven’t I?”