The camaraderie between Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar is hard to miss; they are so at ease with each other. “We have a really happy marriage because we rarely meet,” quips Shabana. Jokes apart — although several amusing incidents are shared over the course of the conversation — she attributes it to sharing similar values and backgrounds. “We shared a friendship that was so strong, even marriage couldn’t ruin it,” she laughs.
In Chennai, over the weekend to be part of a wellness conclave organised by the Radiant Group of Companies, the couple, in conversation with Dr. Renuka David, managing director of Radiant Wellness, spoke on everything from work-life balance to parenting, and how they have dealt with various situations in their life.
When Shabana complains that Javed, who is known for his passionate lyrics and poetry, “doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body”, he explains why, with an illustration: “A trapeze artist doesn’t keep hanging upside down even after the show has ended.” He believes that two people can be happy together only when they are happy as individuals. “And no matter how close you are to each other, everyone has a private space that needs to be respected. When you expect more than the other person is willing to give, the relationship sours,” he says.
“There’s a lot of confusion on what constitutes feminism due to transitional gender roles,” says Shabana, recounting an incident where a woman walked in on her ironing Javed’s kurta. “She asked me how I could call myself a feminist. I was doing it because I wanted him to wear a well-ironed kurta. It was that simple,” she says. Javed adds, “Thankfully no one came into the room the day I was pressing your feet because you were tired. They wouldn’t have believed it if I told them that it was not an everyday occurrence!”
On the question of multi-tasking and stress-busting, Javed insists that you can only de-stress if you are really interested in it. “Everyone needs multiple breaks; you need some objectivity in life. If you can’t do something now it’s not the end of the world.” Shabana called Javed (Jadu, as she sweetly calls him) her greatest stress-buster in spite of his serious image. “He once made up a song about spilling soup when I told him to eat carefully,” she giggles, as both of them begin humming a tune and filling in snatches of lyrics.
While both Shabana and Javed are very proud of what their children, Farhan and Zoya, have achieved as individuals, they are not the kind to openly praise them. Javed simply says, “They have never compromised themselves by doing a certain kind of movie or song to make it in their careers. What I’m happy about is that their friends haven’t changed over the last 15 years. With fame, they haven’t started hanging out with a different crowd.”
With so many parents despairing about the career choices their children are making, Shabana shares her experience with Farhan: “He simply dropped out of college and said it did not interest him. He spent a year sitting at home, watching movies all day and all night. After that, he joined Zoya in an ad agency; I realised then that for that entire year, he had been absorbing every facet of cinema by watching movies and that made a difference in his life.” Javed suggests that we start by giving them a longer “shopping list” of careers apart from engineering, medicine or architecture. “(Khalil) Gibran said that parents should be the bow that helps the arrow that is their child fly. Here, the bow is following the arrow around,” he says.
And when it comes to age, Shabana is more accepting of it. “Embrace your age. Don’t fight to be younger,” she says, even as Javed adds, “Given a chance, I’d live forever. Not because I love myself — although that is true too — but because the thought that I won’t be around to see new movies, listen to new songs and learn about new discoveries about the human body and the universe is depressing. And there are so many poems, scripts and more waiting to be written.”
As a surprise guest, Milkha Singh was presented with the Wellness Icon Award by Col. David Devasahayam (retd.), chairman of the Radiant Group. The Flying Sikh, who is remembered for his records on the track, spoke about his struggle to come up in life and how his passion for running overtook all else. “I cried thrice in my life: once when I reached Delhi after Partition, once when I missed out on the Olympic medal, and last, when I saw Farhan Akhtar portraying me in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. It reminded me of everything I had gone through,” he said. He also spoke about living a healthy life even in old age, and of being active in body and mind.
