He was married, it was tough: Shabana Azmi on relationship with Javed Akhtar

Shabana Azmi, in a recent interview, talked about her struggles after she got into a relationship with lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar. The duo has a son named Farhan, who is a filmmaker-writer-actor, and daughter Zoya, who is also a filmmaker. 

She opened up about the disapproval of her parents – late poet and writer Kaifi Azmi and late actress Shaukat Kaifi – about her relationship with Javed Akhtar.

Shabana Azmi told Twinkle Khanna “He was a married man, he had children, it was really tough. And that’s why I feel that people shouldn’t speculate. It’s difficult enough for the people involved and then just for gossip’s sake. And obviously, people are going to say, ‘You call yourself a feminist and then how have you got yourself in this situation?’ At that time, I did have a choice.”

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She continued, “I could explain my point of view, which would justify the action I had taken, but I felt if I did that, it would lead to more speculation, so I decided to go quiet. In time people will come to know, and that is exactly what happened. Now of this, the real good thing that happened, and I give Honey Irani a lot of credit for it, because through it all, she never poisoned the children’s minds against me.”

“She would have been justified… But she never, never did that. In fact, she sent the children with us to London when they were really young, and that became a bonding, and it’s to her credit, Javed’s credit, and my credit that we have such a healthy relationship with Zoya and Farhan.”

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Shabana Azmi further revealed she was “attracted to Javed Akhtar because of his wit and his intelligence, his humour and basically his world view” and how much his ideology and behaviour are similar to that of her father. “People keep saying that we should have had an arranged marriage. Itne zyada similarities hai,” she said.

Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar will be celebrating their 37th wedding anniversary this year.