Shabana Azmi turns all gooey-eyed while talking about dear friend Aparna Sen. “I’m sorry this is going to sound hagiographic but that’s because you’ve caught me in this frame of mind ! She is my dearest dearest friend. I love and respect her. She is an extremely intelligent person and one can discuss any subject with her. She and I have formed a relationship over the years where I immediately fall into a daft mode in her presence and she scolds me like a school teacher!”
Shabana loves Aparna not only as a friend but also as a cineaste. “Her understanding of cinema is deep and I wish I could get her funds to make films without ever caring about budget constraints. It’s not that I adore all her films . I am honest with her about my appraisal of her films and she takes it in the right spirit . I tease her a great deal about her quaint English and she calls mine the Bombay accent.”
The two ever-beautiful divas bonded instantaneously during the making of the enigmatic film Sati . Shabana played a woman married to a tree.
Recalls Shabana, “Prior to Sati I was in Aparna’s telefilm Picnic in which Aparna’s daughter Konkona played my daughter. But it was during the making of Sati in 1989 that we came really close. I played a mute woman in the 19th century, married to a tree, as the horoscope predicted death for my husband.Most of the film was shot in torrential rain. They filled the studio with cold water , and when it gave me a cold and cough , they heated the water. That made it worse. I was seriously ill with pneumonia after shooting Sati. But the film started this wonderful friendship between us which lasts to this day. I remember earlier Aparna had very low selfesteem. She just wouldn’t accept let alone acknowledge her talent and beauty!”
In 2008, Shabana was all set to serve as assistant director to Aparna Sen on her first Hindi film Gulel. “The fact that Aparna and I are such good friends helped me to make up my mind When she narrated flashes from her script for Gulel I said I wanted to assist her. She said , “Sure. But what are you going to do?” Aparna is my very close friend. I respect her deeply as a human being and admire greatly as a director. When she made a telefilm Picnic I had translated her dialogues to Hindi. Assisting Aparna sounded like something great. Aparna joked that I’ll be her slave. Gulel never happened.”
