Shabana Azmi reminisces with Subhash K Jha in this interview about the experience of making Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd. (2007), which also featured the brilliant cast of Boman Irani, Abhay Deol, Minissha Lamba, Kay Kay Menon, Raima Sen, Karan Khanna, Sandhya Mridul, Vikram Chatwal, Ameesha Patel, and Dia Mirza.
This was your first film for your son Farhan Akhtar’s production house?
I had a ball doing Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd. My kids (Farhan and Zoya Akhtar) are involved with it. I’ve a very small part.
You had never been paired with Boman Irani before?
Boman plays this Christian Goanese guy. I play this Muslim woman. He plays a brash man. My character is more genteel. I love my look in this film. I kept telling the clothes designer Arjun Bhasin that after this film, he won’t be getting any more assignments. All of us are so atrociously dressed by design. For Arjun’s sake, I hope the film industry gets to the point, or this is the end of his career. Jokes aside, it’s a great feeling to dress according to character. But when my mother saw these clothes, she freaked out. ‘Please, Shabana taqleef hoti hai!’ she told me. Arrey, she can dress any way she wants for a part. Why not me?
Let’s talk about your first screen kiss with a man in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd??
What’s a kiss with Boman? I’ve kissed Nandita Das in Fire. Watching me do a normal kiss, you must have heaved a sigh of relief. It’s a very innocent, sweet, meetha, and non-controversial kiss.
You play a woman who comes into her own?
I played this woman whose husband wants to make her happy. He keeps reciting sher in wrong Urdu. Such a sweet, tender meetha relationship… The kiss comes in when he reaches his ancestral house to see it being dismantled. That’s when I move towards him. He kisses me right in the middle of the street. I think Boman was far more terrified than I was.
How was Reema Kagti as a first-time director?
Since she has been an efficient AD, she had this quality of getting whatever she wants by hook or by crook. Other first-time directors are ready to commit suicide if they can’t get the shot they want. Not Reema. She always had an alternative plan. There’s always that one shot in every film, which remains a problem till the end. It was a simple scene on a beach featuring me and Boman. The first time it couldn’t be done because I had to go to the United Nations for an award. I stayed back for the scene. It didn’t happen. Then I gave up Holi in my house—you know how important Holi is to me—to do that scene. Again, nahin hua. When we finally did it, it had to be redone.
I don’t think you had so much fun doing any other of your films?
Doing an ensemble piece was a total pleasure. And I’ve done two of them back to back. The first one was The Loins Of Punjab directed by Manish Acharya. The one thing that an ensemble cast teaches you is endless patience. You are an extra in every scene. If you get bored of being an extra, you harm the film. Fortunately, Goa, where we shot the film, didn’t give any of us a chance to get bored. We all did such dhamaal…playing antakshari, dumb charade.
How was Boman Irani as a co-star?
He’s such a movie buff. He knows every detail of every film. I’d just sit back and wonder what sort of a Parsi is this who knows everything about Hindi films. He speaks non-stop. He’d pretend all the time that I was scolding him. But Boman and I had a ball. All the young girls in the unit wanted to be around Boman, and the all the young boys hovered around me. So we were both deeply flattered.
Fond memories of the co-actors?
Particularly Sandhya Mridul, who has the most delicious sense of humour. I just adored being around her. And then Raima Sen … wohek apne type ki cheez hai. And I’m so proud of my child, Zoya Akhtar. I always wondered how she’d be as a director. Watching her handle the unit of Honeymoon Travels as a producer I could see her capabilities. My God, this girl is absolutely amazing. To see an adult with all the correct values emerging from your child is a really rewarding experience.
