Esteemed actress Shabana Azmi, who redefined the archetype of women in Indian films to emerge as one of the leading protagonists of art-house cinema in the last quarter of the previous century, feels it was auteur Shyam Benegal who made her believable as a deglamourised rural woman.From ordering her to “sit on your haunches” to making her wear a saree and move around like a village woman, Benegal had his way of training and preparing the urbane actress with an English medium background for portraying roles of real rural women grappling with real issues.Azmi won the first of her five national awards as best actress on her debut with the iconic “Ankur” (1974), which also happened to be Benegal’s maiden directorial venture. She went on to play pivotal characters in Benegal’s critically acclaimed creations “Nishant” (1975) and “Mandi” (1983).While reminiscing about her voyage with the visionary director during a session at the 13th Kolkata Literary Meet (KALAM) here, Azmi shared a distant memory of shooting in a small suburb in Hyderabad namedYellareddyguda.
The director asked her to put on a saree and move around to make herself look convincing to the village masses as the character of Laxmi from “Ankur”.Azmi, 74, added a few humorous subtleties to her narrative, engaging her audience during the session headlined ‘Seeding a New Cinema – the Legacy of Shyam Benegal’.”One day Shyam told me while we were having our lunch, go in the corner and sit on your haunches. I realised that I couldn’t sit on my haunches. However, that’s what my character Laxmi is supposed to do throughout the film.”Narrating her story, Azmi added how she was approached by a bunch of college boys after a week of shooting and enquired, ” Heroine kidhar hain (Where is the heroine?), to which Azmi spontaneously answered “Chutti pe gayi hain” (She has gone for a break).The college guys instantaneously reverted to “Tu kon?” (Who are you?) and without wasting a second, she answered, “Main Ayah” (I’m the maid). Shyam was watching the whole matter and called Azmi back,saying, “You’ve convinced them that you are not an actor; now you can come and sit with us”. She wound up the narration by concluding, “So that was the training”.
Benegal, who died on December 23 last, is celebrated as a vanguard of Indian parallel cinema. His films are noted for intricate and progressive representation of women at a time when Bollywood commercial ventures were busy boxing women into supportive wives or sacrificial mothers, and the worst prototype was the decorative loveinterest. Azmi nodded, saying, “Certainly, he broke the stereotype, and he presented her as a person with agency and as a human being with all the complexities and frailties”.She dug down deep into her memory and shared that Laxmi from “Ankur” managed to purloin some rice from the Zamindar and people were cynical about it, as the audience would lose sympathy for the character.”I was like what’s rubbish! That would make her look so real and not whitewashing her, presenting in her complexity, which even today Bollywood mainstream cinema presents in a surfacy understanding,” added Azmi.