Shabana: 50 glorious years in cinema

The actor received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Bengaluru last week. Debuting with Shyam Benegal’s ‘Ankur’ in 1974, she acted in some of India’s most critically acclaimed films. Roshmila Bhattacharya describes her journey

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, as a part of the 16th Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes), felicitated veteran actor Shabana Azmi with the Lifetime Achievement Award last week. She asserts that “to be recognised by the State’s Chief Minister is always a big honour,” she is very thankful for it.

The nationally and internationally acclaimed actor, who is in her golden jubilee year, has had a long association with the Garden City and admits she loves the jasmine flowers, the biryani from ‘Nagarjuna’ and the weather, but rues that the traffic situation is a drag. However, she acknowledges, its theatre scene is exciting and Arundhati Nag’s ‘Ranga Shankara’ gives space to experimental stuff.

“Girish Karnad was an intellectual, a very important playwright, and used his voice to raise issues that he was passionate about. I’m still working in his play ‘Broken Images’, directed by Alyque Padamsee, which is, for me, the most challenging part that I have played,” Shabana states.

Back in 1977, she had acted in a Kannada film, ‘Kanneshwara Rama’, based on S K Nadig’s novel Kannayya Rama, which unfolds in the 1920s. Anant Nag plays the title role of a hot-headed peasant who becomes a Robin Hood-like bandit, then goes on to carve a principality of his own much to the concern of local cops and the ruling British. Eventually, he’s betrayed by the woman he loves, Shabana’s Malli. “I have the highest regard for M S Sathyu who directed ‘Kanneshwara Rama’ and it was such a pleasure to work with Anant Nag. Sadly, I haven’t been in touch with him,” says the actor, who was paired with him in Shyam Benegal’s Ankur.

In the trailblazing 1974 film, Anant plays Surya, the son of a village landlord, who returns to the village after completing his studies in Hyderabad to take over the administration of his share of land. He breaks tradition and employs a Dalit woman to cook and clean for him. When Lakshmi’s deaf-mute, alcoholic husband, Kishtayya (Sadhu Meher) goes missing after being trashed for stealing toddy, Surya seduces and impregnates her with false promises of never disowning her. Benegal had seasoned actors like Waheeda Rehman and Sharada in mind to play Lakshmi, but eventually, opted for Shabana, who, like him, was a debutant. He even tweaked the role to make the character younger for her. “I didn’t even audition Shabana, like I had Anant, surprising even her,” the director had admitted.

His ‘discovery’ lived up to his confidence with a National Award-winning performance. Just that one scene towards the end, when Lakshmi rushes to save her husband from being mercilessly lynched by a guilt-stricken Surya — cursing him and sowing the first seeds of rebellion in the village — stumbling home with Kishtayya, proved that she was an actor par excellence. “Give Shabana a role and she owns the part,” Benegal raved years later.

With startling lucidity he had pinpointed what sets her apart. Shabana will do anything to ‘live’ the character. In Bengaluru boy, Mahesh Dattani’s 2004 musical drama, ‘Morning Raga’, she plays a classical singer. By her own admission, it was a challenge because she did not know Karnatik music and had only 18 days of practice. “But Ravi Shankar called me up and said it was a very convincing performance which was the biggest compliment I could get,” she reveals.

Vinay Shukla, writer-director of the 1999 crime drama ‘Godmother’, recalls that his lead actor made him record all the dialogues in his voice, then, as part of her prep, listened to the recording repeatedly to get the dialect right. “She also gave some invaluable creative inputs that enhanced a scene, like making the peon clean the cobwebs on the ceiling when Rambhi visits the panchayat office for the first time,” he informs. 

For Shukla, the defining scene in the film is the one where Rambhi urges her son to surrender to the cops and move away from the path of crime and violence that she had chosen for herself, asking him to forgive her for teaching him all the wrong things. ‘Tere ko pariksha dene jana tha aur maine tere ko school ke jagah maut ka path padhaya’ (You wanted to write your exams, but instead I taught you lessons of death), she regrets. 

Pointing out that Rambhi was always a “thinking” woman whose advice even her husband sought, Shukla reasons that this scene reflects her introspection on her life’s journey that has made her who she is and brought her to this juncture. The film bagged six National Awards, including one more ‘Best Actress’ Award for Shabana.   

A quarter of a century later, she plays a 70-plus, middle-class woman who runs a drug operation using lunchboxes with her daughter-in-law from a Mumbai housing society in ‘Dabba Cartel’. Farhan Akhtar, whose Excel Entertainment has produced the Netflix series, acknowledged in a recent interview that Shabana played a “female don” in a film titled ‘Godmother’ many years ago.

“Godmother was a transformative process, and having gone through it with Rambhi, Sheila from ‘Dabba Cartel’ is all the more powerful today. She knows how to play her cards in her dealings with the underworld. From ‘Godmother’ she has evolved into a Marlon Brando-like ‘Godfather’,” Shukla smiles.    

Interestingly, cooking is an art Shabana has yet to master. She’s had many culinary misadventures and recalls calling chef Vikas Khanna in New York from Budapest where she was shooting for the American military sci-fi television series, ‘Halo’, wondering why the dal was taking an eternity to cook. “He told me it was not masoor (red lentil) but chana (chickpeas) which needs to be soaked overnight in a cold country,” she shares. 

Obviously, the shortcoming is not evident on screen with Sheila very proficient around the kitchen, making you wish you could taste what’s in the dabba. And that explains how, even after 50 years, Shabana Azmi continues to rule, the ankur (seedling) having blossomed into a consummate performer. 

(The author is a senior film journalist)