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Shabana Azmi mini-bio:
 She was born on 18 September
1950, in a Muslim family. Her
parents named, Kaifi Azmi - a
renowned Indian poet and writer
of Urdu, and Shaukat Azmi - a
well known stage actress. Her brother, Baba Azmi, is a cinematographer. Her parents
had an active social life, and their
home was always throbbing with
people and activities. Early in childhood, the environment in her home inculcated into her a
respect for family ties, social
and human values; and her
parents always supported her to develop a passion for intellectual stimulation and growth.
She completed a graduation degree in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College,
Mumbai, followed by a course in Acting at the Film and Television Institute of
India (FTII), Pune. She topped the list of successful candidates of 1972.
Her first movie to be released was Shyam Benegal’s Ankur (1972), which won the national award. However, her first film was an art film, made by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Faalsa, which was released in 1974. Her roles in both the films attracted positive comments both from the reviewers and the audiences. She received the national awards consecutively for three years from 1983 to 1985 for her roles in movies, Arth, Khandhar and Paar. Another film named Godmother (1999) brought her another national award taking her tally to five national awards.
Shabana’s acting has been characterized by a life like real depiction of the roles played by her. In Mandi she acted as a madam of a whorehouse, and to act this role she put on weight and even chewed betel. Real life like portrayals continued in almost all of her movies with a variety of roles, including a tragic role of a woman named Jamini resigned to her destiny in Khandhar, and a typical urban Indian wife, homemaker and mother in Masoom.
She also did many roles in experimental and parallel Indian cinema. Deepa Mehta’s 1996 film Fire depicts her as a lonely woman, Radha, in love with her sister-in-law. Radha being the name of a goddess and the on-screen depiction of lesbianism (perhaps the first in Indian cinema)
drew severe protests from many
social groups of India, and also
threats of ban by Indian authorities. Her role as Radha brought her international recognition with the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the 32nd Chicago Film Festival and Jury Award for Best Actress at Outfest, Los Angeles.
 Some of her noted films include Shyam Benegal's Nishant (1975), Junoon (1978), Susman (1986), and Antarnaad (1992); Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi; Mrinal Sen’s Khandhar, Genesis, Ek Din Achanak; Saeed Mirza’s Albert Pinto Ko Guussa Kyon Aata Hai; Sai Paranjpye’s Sparsh and Disha; Gautam Ghose’ Paar; Aparna Sen’s Picnic and Sati ; Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth; Vinay Shukla’s Godmother. Her other films include the commercially successful Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish (of Manmohan Desai) and Prakash Mehra’s Jwalamukhi. Azmi has also starred in a number of Hollywood productions, the first being John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka (1988), followed by Roland Joffe’s City of Joy (1992), among others.
Shabana’s debut to the small screen began with her acting in a soap opera with a cause, Anupama, that is, the unique or the unparallel. She did the role of a modern Indian woman who while endorsing the traditional Indian ethos and values negotiated more freedom for herself.
She had also participated in many stage plays, and notable among them include M. S. Sathyu’s Safed Kundali (1980), which was a version of the Caucasian Chalk Circle; and Farouque Shaikh’s Tumhari Amrita, which ran almost five years. She toured Singapore for about a month on an assignment by the Singapore Repertory Theatre Company, doing role in Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Doll House, which was directed by Rey Buono. Pointing out the differences in all these mediums, she once remarked that the theatre was really the actor’s medium; the stage was actor’s space; cinema was the director’s medium; and television was a writer’s medium.
 In the initial stage of her career, she was linked to noted film director Shekhar Kapur, but married Javed Akhtar, a famed lyricist, poet and Bollywood scriptwriter on 9 December 1984. It was Akhtar’s second marriage, the first being with the Bollywood scriptwriter, Honey Irani. Kaifi Azmi, a renowned Indian poet and writer of Urdu is her father. Her mother Shaukat Azmi is a well-known stage actress. Her brother is Baba Azmi; Farah Naaz and Tabu are her nieces.
 She has acted in more than one hundred Hindi films, both in the mainstream as well as in parallel cinema. Several of her films have received attention in the international arena, including at
the Norwegian Film Institute, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Film Institute. She has appeared in a number of foreign films, most of which have won international acclaim, including John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka, Nicholas Klotz’s Bengali Night, Roland Joffe’s City of Joy, Channel 4’s Immaculate Conception, Blake Edwards' Son
of the Pink Panther, and Ismail Merchant’s In Custody.
 Shabana Azmi has been a committed social activist, active in fighting AIDS and injustice in real life. Shabana Azmi has voiced her opinion on a variety of issues. Initially, her activism drew skepticism and was dubbed by some as a publicity gimmick. However, she proved her critics wrong and used her celebrity status to emerge as a high-profile social activist. She had participated in several plays and demonstrations denouncing communalism. In 1989, along with Swami Agnivesh and Asghar Ali Engineer, she undertook a four day march for communal harmony from New Delhi to Meerut.
 Among the neglected social groups
whose causes she has advocated are slum dwellers, displaced Kashmiri Pandit migrants and victims of the earthquake at Latur (Maharashtra, India). The 1993 Mumbai riots appalled her and she emerged as a forceful critic of religious extremism. After the September 11 2001 attacks, she opposed the advice of an important religious leader calling upon the Muslims of India to join the people of Afghanistan in their fight by retorting that the leader go there alone. Her strong reaction encouraged other moderate Muslim leaders to counsel restraint and tolerance, and to shun terrorism.
She has campaigned against ostracism
of victims of AIDS. A small film clip
issued by the Government of India depicts an HIV positive cuddled in her arms and saying: “She does not need your rejection,
she needs your love”. In a Bengali film named Meghla Aakash she played the role
of a physician treating AIDS patients.
Shabana Azmi’s long association with movies and her performances in them, as also her work as a social activist and an active parliamentarian, had been well and widely recognized, including conferment with several awards.
Since 1989, she is a member of the National Integration Council headed by the Prime Minister of India; a member of National AIDS Commission (of India); and was nominated (in 1997) as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. UNFPA had appointed her as its goodwill Ambassador for India, and the University of Michigan conferred (in 2002) on her the Martin Luther King Professorship award in recognition of her contribution to arts, culture and society.
| VITAL STATS | Shabana Azmi Information:
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