Golden Era of Bollywood: Shabana Azmi - An Actress Par Excellence

Shabana Azmi (born 18 September 1950) made her big-screen debut with Shyam Benegal’s first film Ankur in 1974. With this film started a trend of Art Cinema or Parallel Cinema in Bollywood. The film went on to become a major critical success, and Shabana Azmi won her first National Film Award for Best Actress for this film. The very next film of her was Dev Anand's Ishk Ishk Ishk in which she had a small role but in the next year in 1975 she appeared in Nishant which was again an Art film, her acting was appreciated in this film.

Since then she appeared in both commercial cinema as well as Art cinema. She has acted in more than one hundred Hindi films. Real-life portrayals continued in almost all of her movies. Shyam Benegal's Nishant (1975), Junoon (1978), Susman (1986), and Antarnaad (1992); Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players); Mrinal Sen's Khandhar, Genesis, Ek Din Achanak; Saeed Mirza's Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai; Sai Paranjpye's Sparsh and Disha; Gautam Ghose's Paar; Aparna Sen's Picnic and Sati; Mahesh Bhatt's Arth; and Vinay Shukla's Godmother are some of her notable films.

Shabana Azmi ruled Indian 'Parallel Cinema' for 30-years. She hit her peak during the ’80s, wowing the audience with memorable performances in Sparsh (1980), Arth (1982), Masoom (1983) and Mandi (1983), playing difficult characters with consummate ease.

She has been a committed social activist, active in supporting child survival and fighting AIDS and injustice in real life Azmi has voiced her opinion on a variety of issues. Initially, her activism drew skepticism and was dubbed by some as a publicity gimmick. However, she proved her critics wrong and used her celebrity status to emerge as a high-profile social activist.

Since 1989, she has been a member of the National Integration Council headed by the Prime Minister of India; a member of National AIDS Commission (of India); and was nominated (in 1997) as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. In 1998, the United Nations Population Fund appointed her as its Goodwill Ambassador for India.

In appreciation of Shabana Azmi's life and works, the President of India gave her a nominated (unelected) membership of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament.

She is the daughter of great poet Kaifi Azmi and married to Javed Akhtar who is also a great name in Bollywood.

Some of the songs from Shabana's Films