Shabana Azmi is not a big fan of celebrating birthdays but prefers to spend the day quietly with her close friends and family. She says that husband Javed Akhtar is always more excited about some kind of celebration. There was a grand bash on Shabana’s 50th birthday and the other on her 60th birthday. The pandemic clouded her 70th birthday celebrations last year as she couldn’t celebrate the way she had ideally wanted. This year, now that the rules have been relaxed a bit, the actress will celebrate her 71st birthday with a high tea which will be attended by family and friends.
She is currently shooting for Karan Johar’s directorial comeback Rocky and Rani’s love story, and it was supposed to be a working birthday present for the actress. But now she has an unexpected vacation and she plans to make the most of it.
“I’m not up for the big birthday celebration at all, but my husband is very excited for some strange reason. I had to be on set to work on Karan’s film, and we had a turnaround day at the last minute, so this It’s going to be just family and close friends for High Tea. That’s what I love most, I love High Tea more than dinner. So just a small, intimate gathering,” Shabana told News18 a day before her birthday Told.
Birthday celebrations were not a part of the actress’s life when she was growing up. “Growing up my brother Baba and I never celebrated our birthdays. Before me I had a brother who passed away just a week before his first birthday. My mother had done a lot of preparations for his birthday, and when he passed away, it made him really superstitious. In school, birthdays meant that there was a day when you were allowed to wear frocks instead of uniforms. Queen Mary School had a mix of people from the very rich to the middle class – it was a happy mix. No matter who you are, no one was allowed to share more than two sweets, that’s all,” she recalls.
Large gatherings became a part of his life much later. “I think I started having a big celebration on my 50th birthday and then 60th. Last year we weren’t able to do much because of the pandemic.”
Not just for birthdays, Shabana and Javed Akhtar’s Holi parties, Diwali and Eid gatherings are also known to bring together their friends from the world of art and cinema. The actress often shares those happy moments with her followers on social media. “My family and friends are my lifeline. And especially when we are traveling for a long time, it is almost a given that the day we come back everyone will gather together. Obviously during COVID one has to be really, very careful. Now that the rules have been relaxed a bit when you meet each other, we’re behaving like we haven’t seen each other in years. So the same group of people behave as if we have been deprived of each other’s company, although we talk to each other everyday,” she says with a laugh.
Rocky and Rani’s love story is working with Karan Johar for the first time. The filmmaker has managed a casting coup involving Shabana, Dharmendra, Jaya Bachchan, Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in the same film. Shabana says that she was earlier offered a Karan Johar film but could not do so due to prior commitments.
“Karan and I have waited a long time to work together and it is good how warm the atmosphere is on the sets. It is a comedy film, but it does take some important issues lightly. This is a very interesting script. I always enjoy being a part of Ensemble projects. I have done two films with Dharamji and one with Jaya, none with Ranveer and Alia, so this is a new group, which is always interesting,” she says.
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