Bestest Ever – A Tribute to Shabana Azmi!
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It was in mid-90s and the program on some TV channel, I think it was channel V, was called “This Week That Year”. I remember the program because of a very unusual anchor for a very Bollywood based program. Unusual, because the anchor was a very western looking, mustachioed guy, speaking impeccable English. On first look, you would even doubt if he even watched Hindi films. But apparently he did and the program was a nice nostalgia show where he picked films that were released in the same week in a different year or decade. That’s where I first heard it and I haven’t forgotten it ever since. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
The film being reviewed was “Arth’, a Shabana Azmi swan song, out of many swan songs for her. Mahesh Bhatt was on and in his casual style he threw it out there, something along these lines “I think it’s high time that we acknowledge the fact that Shabana is probably the best actress we ever had in the history of Indian cinema”. Now, that was quite a statement and you can call it exaggeration, particularly coming from Mr. Bhatt who typically speaks in exaggerations. But, somewhere he had a point and it touched me deeply.
I admit I have been in love with different Hindi film heroines at different times and even some of the Hollywood ones. Most of these infatuations die out after some time, either when a new face appears on screen or when my screen goddess starts to look old or starts appearing in one lousy film after another. But in case of Shabana Azmi, it wasn’t love at first sight. I had to grow up to be able to love Shabana Aazmi on screen. I am not sure if it was because of the choice of her roles or the unconventional beauty she represents in real life, once I grew up and got fixated, to this day, I haven’t overcome my fixation. I admit it on a mass medium like PFC, I find Shabana Azmi, the most beautiful and sexy face on screen.
But what Shabana Azmi represents on screen and why it takes growing up to like her is not just physical beauty. It’s a different kind of beauty, very similar to what we see in a bird’s flight or a cheetah’s run or even in Sachin Tendulkar’s batting or Wasim Akram’s bowling. It’s human talent and genius at work, perfectly in harmony with nature, not violating it. Not that she is not glamorous or can’t be sensual; watch her in a song from an unreleased film of her, Libaas, “Sili hawa chho gayi”. I find the song and Shabana Azmi in that as sexy as Sridevi in a wet blue sari in Mr. India.
Just like Sachin Tendulkar, I am amazed, how effortless Shabana Azmi makes acting look like. I remember, “Apne Paraye’, one of her not so famous films with Amol Palekar. The way she acts out the caring, loving yet strict and self respecting, chhoti bahu, you just wonder what research she did. There is probably nobody comes even close when it comes to portrayal of middle class every day characters, the way Shabana does it. She changes everything, the dressing style, the body language, the constant frown or smile on her face, everything brings the character alive on screen. I am not sure what ‘Method Acting’ means, but whatever method she applies, seems to be the best to me. In Arth, there are scenes where she defies human limitations to play emotions and characters on screen. In a scene or a sequence of scenes, she is out of her marriage and all by herself in the big bad world, finding shelter in a working women’s hostel. She looks so scared and shaken from her core, it freaks me out. Her transformation from there to a more confident and self assured woman to be able to take a tough progressive decision toward the end, not sure if any other actress wound have done justice to it.
Another example is Masoom, my forever favorite for a repeat watch anytime of the day. The film is a classic, and everything is great in the film, but if it were not for the lead pair, Naseer and Shabana, the film could’ve easily gone wrong. She is picture prefect as busy, happy, contented middle class housewife and mom in the first half, but it’s her sulking in the second half that takes the prize. I have never seen anybody sulk so bad or rather well on screen, may be Rajesh Khanna in Avishkar (a film about sulking ) comes close. Shabana’s sulking was so good, you start feeling sorry for Naseer’s character who is supposed to be the infidel in the relationship. You can count numerous such cine moments that Shabana made look so real yet so effortless on Indian cine screens.
There is very little written about Shabana, or may be haven’t looked hard enough. I couldn’t find s ingle piece on PFC. She is the daughter of one of our most famous Urdu poets, a fact well known. She is also quite popular as a film celebrity who is married to Jawed Akhtar and is a political activist. But I can bet, there is lot more to Shabana Azmi than the actress, celebrity and politician than we know. She must be very sharp individual and brilliant conversationalist in real-life, almost to the scale of Gulzar sab. As a complete outsider if was given the choice to spend an evening with any film personality, I would pick her or Gulzar sab any day or time.
Every time you read whatever little is written about her, two things standout. One, her almost complete absence or non-presence in commercial cinema and second her rivalry with late Smita Patil. Not sure what it was, may be her reluctance to be a prop in our typically male dominated films of 70s and 80s or may be she lacked screen charisma which I seriously doubt. Her attempt at a full blown commercial film in Amar Akbar Anthony didn’t go well. Unlike everybody else who seemed to be having ball of a time, she completely looked a fish out of water. I am glad she didn’t repeat that and lose herself in the crowd of Anita Rajs, Reena Roys, Rekhas and so many other main stream heroines of her time. Instead, she went on to chart her own course and Hindi cinema is richer and better because of that. People probably doubted if she could ever do justice to a larger than life role, but she proved people wrong in Mandi where she was foul mouthed and loud. In Godmother, she gave Bachchanesq performance in the role of a female crime boss. Once again the entire body language was transformed including the dialect she spoke.
As for her rivalry with Smita Patil, I am biased as you can see. I loved Smita Patil too and some of the great every performance of hers, but there was sameness in her performances. Besides, I always found that Smita was Smita, no matter what role she was playing. Effective, sexy and graceful yes, but she was Smita Patil with her great screen presence. Shabana Azmi on the other hand was never Shabana in any of her roles. She became whatever the character was. This trait of her was visible right from her first film, Ankur, where she completely transformed herself into Laxmi, the village maid. The way she dresses, the way she walks around the house, the way she curses Anantnag in the end, masterpiece! In the end, Shabana and Smita were probably like Md. Rafi and Kishore Kumar, two gems of Indian cinema, meant for celebration instead of analysis or comparison.
Bestest ever, is a very hard case to make. That too in an art medium where best varies depending on the perspective of who is looking at it, it’s probably an impossible case to make. How do you decide, on what basis, whether somebody was as great or even better than someone like late Nutan or Madhubala or Meena Kumari or Nargis. In the end, it’ll probably always remain undecided. One thing is for sure, though, whenever someone makes a list of handful of names, Shabana Azmi’s name will be on that list, as a strong contender for the Bestest Ever!
Finally, wouldn’t be a great idea to celebrate some of these personalities by dedicating a month to them where we all write about one such personality who has touched out lives through their work in the field of Indian cinema. I would love to read so many great writers on PFC, including the personalities from inside the film world write about my all time favorite actress.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
In fact I think Shabana did not fit the bill of village bumpkin so well as Smita. Both Smita and Shabana were ying-yang. Smita was effortless in her portrayal of the struggling lower and lower-middle class females, while Shabana took care of struggling middle and upper-middle class. May be it has something to do with their looks and our typical impression drawn from them (dusky, bit clumsy yet often sexy = lower class, fair, neat and sexy = middle class).
Shabana recently “professionally” adopted Prateik Babbar. It is her tribute to the wonderful ‘rival’ Smita.
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the undercurrent competition between shabana and smita was who was benegal’s fav…benegal never said it directly, but it was smita…she gave her the best woman oriented role possible…Bhoomika!!
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I have also read that about Benegal favoring Smita. Even in popular culture, Smita is typically ahead. I have a diff opinion I think Smita’s acting was more straight forward and easily understood by masses. Shabana was more subtle, and therefore not easily understood.
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You must read Mrinal Sen’s memoirs about both of them. Your impression is opposite to the reality. It was Shabana Azmi who always enjoyed a stardom over Smita.
IMO,
They both have been wonderful actors and so many times they both out did each other. No actor can go beyond the character and every actor is limited by his/her personality also and no actor may always look perfect in every kind of character because of this personal gravity.
They are judged by the heights they touched whenever got a favourable character.
Though comparison is odd in their cases but if a comparative study has to be done then it should be done for a period of 1975 – 1987 when both were active in the films. Whenever they worked together it has to be considered did both of them play their respective roles with honesty or not. or did they try to out do each other in those films by coming out of their respective characters?
They both were professional actors and tried to do their best. both of them have given us amazing performances.
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I agree with above comment about Shabana being more popular. She is more recognized in popular culture. I’ve seen Shabana in movies since an early age in the commercial films while I got to know Smita later only through parallel cinema.
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Shabana was associated with film world and theatre world since her childhood because of her parents association with these areas. She got a competent and professional training at FTII Pune. Vinod Khanna, Shekhar Kapoor, Mahesh Bhatt and Kabir Bedi were her friends while she was new in the Industry and some of them were her friends before she made her debut. Since begining, except Dharmendra
(can’t recall any film where she worked opposite him) she worked with almost every hero of commercial films.
Filmmakers like Chetan Anand was a friend of her father.
In short She had filmi connections since the begining of acting career.
…
Smita Patil was not trained at FTII. Though she worked in one of the Diploma films of some FTII trained director.
She was working as a newsreader on Marathi DD when Shyam Benegal saw her and took her in Charandas Chor and later in Nishant.
She got to work in commercial films after some 6 years when she did a small budget film with Raj Babbar. It was shot in Siligurhi.
First film which brought her recognition in commercial films was Namak Halal and later Shakti cemented her capability to do a commercial film also. But she did not do many films. She did many films with Raj Babbar. Her career was not stable. By the time she died, parallel cinema had started facing a decline. And she could not live longer to enjoy again the films in a period 1995 onwards. She could have made a lot of difference to Indian cinema if she was present today when cinema has become stable again and people want to make good quality films on a variety of subjects.
Shabana has been more lucky in every terms in comparison to Smita.
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She did co star opposite Dharmendra in one movie Khel Khiladi Ka, standard 70’s revenge flick. It was directed by Arjun Hingorani, who had this weird penchant of making movies with KKK in their titles, Kahani Kismat Ki, Kaatilon Ke Kaatil , Kaun Kare Kurbani, all with Dharam.
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ur bang right abouteh subtlety…Thats why Tabu is very appealing too..She carries Shabana’s trait forward
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Shabana is still one of the best actresses around, with a superb range of performances. Even in recent times, movies like Tehzeeb, Sorry Bhai, Honeymoon Travels still show the fire glowing brightly.
I remember one thing, way back in the 80’s, i had watched Masoom on video, both Shabana-Naseer as you said top notch in it. The very next day i caught Shabana-Naseer again in Paar, this time playing landless Bihari peasants eking out a living in Kolkata. There is a scene, where both of them drive pigs across the river, it was just so freaking realistic, both of them looking every inch the dirt poor, Bihari peasants right down to their accent. And just the day before, they were this posh, upper middle class, Delhi couple.
One more memorable movie i recall is Sparsh, where Naseer plays a blind school teacher and Shabana playing a widow, and their relationship. Rarely have i seen a more beautiful movie on human relationships, and the way Shabana so wonderfully brings to life the feelings of a character, especially in one scene, when Naseer tells her why he feels she is so beautiful, it was such a natural reaction.
For me Naseer & Shabana made one of the best on screen combos, both of them seemed to revel in bringing out the best in each other.
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Yeah, I have seen pair up with Boman Irani off late and the pairing seems to work. I missed Paar, must find that soon. Naseer-Shabana and Ompuri-Shabana worked equally for me. It’s the complete transformation, in dress up, body language and accent the three of them used to accomplish so easily.
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Naseer Shabana rocked in Arth, Ek pal, Sparsh to remember a few. Naseer has that lovely quality to portray middle class junta …a little like Anupam kher…lovable yet intense , laidback
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Naseer- Shabana, in Arth? I hope ur not referring to their combination, coz Naseer was not there in Arth.
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yuppppp Kulbhooshan and raj kiran….in arth….my badd…just wanted to kill and cremate kharbanda’s character….
Raj Kiran nailed it in this one…Anybody remember HIp Hip Hurray ??
hey Deepti Naval was very decent too. should have done some more movies too.
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Anybody remember the movie “Party ” from the 80s…intriguing political fare which did not appeal at all then to me as a 13 yr old….but wud probably be lovely now…
i remember “Daamul” too for Raghubir yadav’s award winning performance…
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ok….Daamul had Annu kapoor it seems and not Raghu bir yadav….I need some sleep or food or both…or some alzhiemer’s medication..
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Bharathi,
(Party from the 80s…intriguing political fare…)
What was political in Party?
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RK well party I remembered as a party of some polititcians and other socialites ech more screwed thatn the other…..did so not appeal to my 12yr old self….
I cant remember much more given my amnesia prone ….
It seems like it wud be darn interesting to watch now !!
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Wonder whether she deserves a write up on PFC. She wuz neither beautiful nor the best actress.
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Arth, Masoom, Paar, Mandi, Ankur, Nishant, Sparsh- Quite a formidable list. Sure she did not gel in with the commercial cinema, but can’t just dismiss her so casually on that basis alone.
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u havent seen Ek Pal….??? Naseer Shabana, Farroukh…..it was awsomeeeee
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VJ, give her another try. Watch the ones you like, the more popular ones like Massom or complex roles like Sparsh and you may change your opinion.
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VJ, if Shabana Azmi is not a good actress then film industries should be closed all over the world because then as per this logic nobody ever acted in any film anywhere.
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Do not twist my words. I did say she was good. I do not find her the best. I aint her fan.
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One person downplay’s Pran’s contribution, another feels Shabana is not the best, Ho Gaya Kalyan.
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We certainly do not need your permission nor approval for forming our opinions
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VJ, If you are so averse to her then you shouldnt have bothered coming around and commenting here. No body is asking you to form any opinion. You can live over your sorry state and exercising your hands over Kat,Kareena or whatever you think is better. If you think Shabhana is not a good actress then I have no words for you. I really feel sorry for you man.
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Do not twist my words. I did say she was good. I do not find her the best. I aint her fan.
But I am not going to justify myself anymore now. Dont need anyone to tell me whether I should come here or no. If you had no words for me, where was the need to comment.
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Ajay, good piece of writing again! You threw in “Rekha” in between Anita Raj and Reena Rai….committed blasphemy :( Ouuchhh..that hurt.
One other thing that I probably didn’t agree with Smita and Shabana comparision…Shabana was always ahead on the beauty department which worked against her to an extent when she was playing those rural/unpolished type of roles where she had to put in extra efforts to look the part. Smita I thought was a more effortless actor and fit into both artsy and commercial roles very easily. In my view point which might appear juvenlie, Smita was leading the race between the two. Rafi and a Kishore comparision didn’t work for me as well…couldn’t come up any better one myself.
One Shabana movie that remained with me for years on is Sparsh. Naseer was brilliant, but he got the meaty part which would attract instant applause. Shabana playing his love interest was a much more difficult part to play, IMO and she was absolutely flawless.
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Siva,
It’s not just your opinion. Most people i talk to friends, family believe that Smita was ahead. Even most of the popular write-up gives her an edge. Rafi-Kishore comparison needs some more explaining- people always believed that Rafi was master at changing his voice to suit the actor on screen whereas Kishore was always Kishore no matter who he was singing for. I was drawing upon that. May be it didn’t work.
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Yes Shabana Azmi is someone who is still going strong.Loved her even recently in movies like Honeymoon Travels,Dus Kahaniyan ( rice plate ),15 Park Avenue,Morning Raaga etc.She looked very convincing as the Telugu villager/singer in Morning Raaga and as the Brahmin widow in Dus Kahaniyan.In fact it was nice to see Nasseruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi together after a long time in Dus Kahaniyan.
But Singh Saab equating Rekha with Reena Roy and Anita Raaj could have very well been avoided IMO.
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That small role of a brahmin widow, who doesn’t trust trust muslims was just superb and they put Naseer against her. They should have based the entire film on that one, it would have worked better :-)
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I know Rekha had tons of admirers :-). No hard feelings please. You can take badla some other way.
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Appreciation of Shabhana came at pfc lately but finally. Kudos to you A.Singh . Shabhana Azmi is the one of the best of all female actors in Hindi cinema. Waheeda Rahman, Jaya Bhaduri and Smita Patil are other in the same genre but comparison is not needed.. And the line touched me – “Shabana and Smita were probably like Md. Rafi and Kishore Kumar, two gems of Indian cinema, meant for celebration instead of analysis or comparison. “
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Thanks, Yayaver. It was long due, i wasn’t quite confident if could do justice to her. My perspective is simply a fan’s perspective.
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A must read for Shabana Azmi admirers –
http://irshadnama.blogspot.com/2009/05/blog-post.html
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Thanks for the link. That was sweet.
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A. Singh, welcome. Knowledge is for sharing only..
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Observe her body language and the way she says it “Randi ka rup dharan kar leti hai” in Arth. I havent seen any actress performing with such dignity on Indian actress. Some other films where I loved her performance were: Masoom; The controlled performance of transforming from a shrew to a mother is brilliant, Mandi; someone learn how to act like a prostitute from her in this film, Namkeen: she is mute but she still coveys a thousand words. The other day I saw a film on TV where she played a prostitute again along with Sharmila Tagore. It looked similar to chori chori chupke chupke. Dont know the name of the film. The way she enacts the prostitute was outstanding. Her body language, her smoking style, her marathi, the diction, the aggression: simply outstanding. Some other films where I liked her were: Godmother, Fire, Makdee, Saaz… Apart from you comparison with cricket, I liked your review. And I am glad someone wrote about her here.
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Neeraj, i think that movie was Doosri Dulhan, something like Victor Banerjee-Sharmila are a married couple, unable to conceive, so they take help of Shabana who is a prostitute.
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Yeah true! It did have Victor Banerjee.BTW can someone point at a source online where I can watch/dwnld Libaas. Have searched everywhere, cant find it anywhere. The DVD is unavailable too.
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Apart from Naseer & Om, Shabana had a good combination with Sanjeev Kumar too, they came in regular masala fare like Vishwaasghat, Devta, as well as in more serious cinema like Namkeen.
She also had a succesful pairing with Shashi Kapoor, again mixing up the masala stuff like Fakira with more offbeat cinema like Junoon.
With Rajesh Khanna, she gave us Avataar, Thodisi Bewafai, two movies that were quite good.
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Thodi si bewafai was good, minus the cheesy teen romance angle for Padmini Kolhapure :-)
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Swami was another good movie, the storyline somewhat similar to Woh 7 Din.
One really good movie of Shabana, that is not too often mentioned is Shaque. It was an excellent murder mystery, starring Vinod Khanna and Shabana, where they play a middle class couple. Vinod is ambitious, wants to earn more. And a murder takes place in his office, and suspicion points to Vinod. Shabana was excellent here, as the wife, who had to deal with the reality that her husband could be a murderer.
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Shaque was a really good thriller with good performances from both Vinod Khanna and Shabana Azmi.Can never forget Swami due to ‘Ka Karoon Sajni Aaye Na Balam’- what a brilliant song sung by Yesudas and composed by Rajesh Roshan.Dheeraj Kumar must be lucky for having sung the song on screen in Swami
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yes swami with Girish Karnad and Frouque…
lovely songs the Threesome were super awesome….
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Swami, did not have Farooque, it had Vikram of “Julie” fame, as her lover.
BTW there was this Shabana-Naseer-Vikram starrer Sithum, not seen it, but heard it was fine.
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yup oppsika….i remember this one scene with that Vikram carrying Shabana over the stream and she falls in love with him…
Ekpal had Farouque playing the other guy to husband Naseer …Farouke is the super charming rougue and Naseer the dutiful forgiving hubby and that quite gives away what happens in the husband’s absense….
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While she had a good pairing with more or less, all the top heroes of her time, it was quite surprising, that till Main Azad Hoon, she did not pair up with AB for a single movie, yeah she was there in AAA and Parvarish, but not his co star. Would like to see AB and Shabana pair up again, they would make a good pair.
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by God…we need somebody to write about Prakash Jha…His work history is extremely interesting..
Maybe he should make a movie on the “Satyendra Dubey” murder next.
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