Shabana Azmi On Life During Lockdown With Javed!

Shabana Azmi says the lockdown has made her  forget  what  dressing up means.  “I am lolling around our house in  any thing.  Kuch bhi kapde pahen  leti hoon. Does this mean that we make an effort to dress  up only for others?  I wonder what  it would be like  to make that effort to dress up again…whenever that happens!”

Shabana  recalls her  mother,  a voracious saree collector, would always be  dressed  properly.  “Even at home she  was immaculately  dressed. She  believed one  dresses  up for one’s  own satisfaction and not  for others.”

Shabana  has  been working out  of her home. “I am constantly attending webinars  ,monitoring the  Covid-related activities  of  the Mijwan Welfare Society (an  organization named after  her father Kaifi Azmi’as native village) doing everything that I normally would except shooting.”

Shabana’s  better-half Javed Akhtar  has stopped all work.

Says  Shabana,  “He has  cut himself  off completely from all social contact and spends the  entire  day  binge watching   OTT  serials. I finally know what a  couch potato looks like.”

Didn’t  Shabana watch any shows   during the lockdown?  “I can’t sit still for more than half an hour. But I did  watch the Vidya Balan short film Natkhat…very  very disturbing. It shows  show paitriarchal  mindsets are normalized.  I’ve always liked Vidya’s work, and her voice is  remarkably expressive.”

During this  time of lockdown Shabana  misses her mother, who passed way earlier this year, the most. “I feel  after losing her I’ve been forced to finally accept that I am an adult now. There is no one I can throw  tantrums  with.”

Covid apart , this year has been  terrible for Shabana. “In January I was in a near-fatal  road accident(which I’ve  completely blanked out from my mind). Then I  lost Mum. And now this Covid  lockdown.”