Barinder Saluja, Chandigarh : July 27 : “I never started as a Theater Actress, after graduating from FTII, Pune, in 1973, but as the time passed, the passion of theater grew in me”. These were the starting words of Shabana Azmi’s press conference, who was here in Chandigarh to perform a Play, “BROKEN IMAGES”, in the ongoing Chandigarh Theater Festival. Dressed up in Rust Color Sari, the very elegant looking actress, intelligently went through the press conference, describing her experiences of Acting in Films and Theater. Differentiating the aspect of acting on silver screen and theater, she said that in theater if something goes wrong, then u have to repair it on your own and very intelligently, as a vigilant audience is watching you live; and as far as cinema is concerned, u have a chance to re-take a shot. But the interesting fact about both the acting are that in front of a camera one cannot tell a lie as far as your expressions are concerned, one gets caught, whereas, in theater it is a bit easy to hide the expressions.
She was very much helped by her sister in law, Tanvi Azmi, in rehearsing this Double Act play before she could be prepared enough to be presented in front of an audience. It was very difficult to play such a role which was never ever played before in the theater history, i.e. a Double Role, & to co-ordinate with a Shabana Azmi on stage and simultaneously a Shabana Azmi on a Screen. Her gleaming face and widened eyes showed the great achievement feeling after the success of this play. Coming from the family of “Kalakaars”, a daughter of Kaifi Azmi ( a poet) – Shaukat Azmi ( a stage actress) and sister of Baba Azmi (cinematographer), explains that it is not that much easy to act in such kind of play’s but was not even that much difficult either. “It was that blood which was present in me, which enabled me to enact it”, said Azmi.
She came down heavily on the issue of female feotecide, explaining it to be an act of shame for the Indian community. Working as a social activist in bringing up the status of Indian Women to equality, she expressed her grudge, with an example, that if a Jet Liner crashes in a country, immediately every one starts finding the fault behind the deaths caused due to that crash. But no one tries to find the fault after a girl child is killed. She was very much concerend about this sensitive matter. She also said that the number of women who die due to pregnancy issue’s in India is far much more than the number of total women who die in whole of Europe in a Year. She wants to change this and help in bringing the status of women in India to Equality.
The press conference included another renowned theater personality and good friend of Shabana Azmi i.e. Rani Balbir Kaur. Shabana Azmi expressed her desire to enact any Historical Character, which would be her dream role & she has been waiting for someone to carve that type of character for her.
