NEW YORK: Renowned actress and social activist Shabana Azmi is currently on a 16-city tour of the US with her latest theatrical project, Girish Karnad’s ‘Broken Images’, a psychological thriller directed by Alyque Padamsee.
After performing to packed houses in New York, Azmi was in Detroit when she joined a webcast via Blog Talk Radio in an interview presented by SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association) and SAMMA (South Asians in Media, Marketing and Entertainment Association) where she talked about her play, her pet social causes, acting, independent cinema, Ram Janmabhoomi verdict and the latest controversy about her 60th birthday cake!
Here are some excerpts:
On Broken Images
I found the play very challenging – it’s typical Girish Karnad, not only is it written with great intrigue and great precision, it also requires split second timing from the actor because I play both the characters in the play.
I do delight in the play because after doing about 50 performances now I still cannot quiet figure out who is the victim and who is the victimizer between the two characters that I play… shifting relations which is typical of Girish Karnad.
On her latest film
‘It’s a Wonderful Afterlife’ by Gurinder Chadda is a film about a mother obsessed with getting her daughter married off. I play a very fat woman with a fat daughter. I had to put on 25 kilos for that part. It took me less than three months to put on all that weight resulting in my Tri-glicerides, thyroid and BP to shoot up and it took its toll on me. Getting rid of all that weight took nearly a year and it was grueling.
On advise to new actors
I typically don’t like to give advice because I don’t see myself in the guru mode. I work very hard, I don’t take things for granted – 30 years after I first appeared on screen I still get butterflies in my stomach before I approach a part; and I do it very diligently and take a lot of care to create a background for the character which you might not see on screen or on stage; but it’s imp for me to root the character. Also, what is very important for actors world over is to understand that they are their own instrument, in the sense that they don’t have a prop that other artistes like musicians do. So actors should embrace life because their resource is life itself. But in order to be an actor you have to be neurotic.
On the key points in her acting career
Ankur, my first film, also marked the beginning of parallel cinema in Hindi. I also won my first National Award for it. Arth, because it was a film that I believed in passionately; after that film I had women coming to me for resolving their marital issues… it made me aware that actors have a responsibility and that marked the beginning of my work with women’s movement in India. Then Gautam Ghosh’s ‘Par’ again is important for me because after that I got involved with Nivara Hakk, the organization that deals with the homeless and slum dwellers in Mumbai; and of course Fire for all that followed after that. Apart from that all the American films I did were also important.
On decline of art cinema
I don’t think it is dying. Independent cinema has taken over from where art cinema was. The profile of the writers and directors is completely different – art cinema was heralded by people who were still coming out of Partition; they were concerned with feudal India, and rural India was where their roots were very strong. Now we have a whole host of young filmmakers who are urban, English speaking, westernized kids and they talk about their reality, which is fine for me because India really is a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously and both these realities are significant. In independent cinema there are a lot of parts for senior actors so it’s a very happy time for actors like me.
On lack of good lead roles for women
There aren’t so many good roles written for women in films purely for the economics of it. In a woman-oriented film, no important male star is willing to do a secondary role, and the male lead is the one who determines the box office returns. I don’t blame producers because they are not here to change the world or to empower women; they are here in a speculative business to make money. But if audiences could convey they are interested in films about women’s empowerment I promise producers will do that. It’s imp for women actors to constantly push the bar and reduce their prices for a good role that will make a difference. We have so many women writers even on television, but it hasn’t resulted in very positive images of women and that I find very strange.
On her work for the girl child
My work I believe takes up from where my father (Kaifi Azmi) left. All over the world, empowerment of women seems to be the buzz word. Women are saying we are different from men, not better or equal, but different and that difference needs to be celebrated. In India, what they lack is not the ability, but opportunity; if we can give them equal access to education, health, micro credit etc, then it will become a level playing field and towards that all the organizations working in this area need to come together and network and not try to reinvent the wheel again.
On her 60th birthday cake
(At her 60th birthday bash in Mumbai recently, Shabana’s husband writer-poet Javed Akhtar had presented her a cake depicting a slum, which created a bit of a controversy.)
I really think this furor has been created for no rhyme or reason. I have always been teased by Javed and others that I take my work too seriously, so this cake was meant as a joke. At Nivara Hakk we have rehabilitated and rebuilt 40,000 homes for free. Can one cake that is a joke take all that away?
On Ram Janmabhoomi verdict
Now that we have got the verdict, it is time for reconciliation. We need to move on. We need to take our cue from the people of India who have held their peace despite all the tension that was being whipped up. I’d like to remind people who are unhappy with the verdict – both Hindus and Muslims – that they had said they’d accept the verdict whatever it was.
Of course for the parties who want to appeal to the Supreme Court it is well within their right and that they can do that. But having accepted this verdict we need to understand that if the verdict was only in favor of Hindus then Muslims would have been unhappy, and if it was only in favor of Muslims then Hindus would have been unhappy; and it would have gone on and on. This way it really sets the way for reconciliation which is very important.
We need to clearly understand that the fight is not between the Hindus and Muslims, but that the fight is between ideologies – ideology of liberalism against ideology of intolerance; it’s really about Hindus and Muslims on the same side fighting intolerance with liberalism, that’s what it’s about.
SRIREKHA CHAKRAVARTY
India Post News Service
