A child actor found me dumb: Shabana Azmi
5 Rupees is a very beautiful short story by Munshi Premchand.” Shabana Azmi
SHABANA AZMI IS considered one of the finest actresses of India. Her latest film 5 Rupees premiered at the 14th Dubai International Film Festival last week. 5 Rupees is based on the legendary Indian writer Premchand’s short story, Eid Gaah, and tells the story of Ameena (played by Shabana Azmi), a poor old woman who has saved a five-rupee coin to gift to her grandson, the seven-year-old Hamid (Yohan Bimal Panjuani), as ‘Eidi’. The movie opened to packed houses for two of its screening. An additional public screening was held at The Beach last Tuesday evening.
What inspired you to sign this film?
It’s a very beautiful short story by Munshi Premchand. I love the story but I was a bit skeptical as to how will this become a full feature film but the director Piyush Panjuani was really sure about it. He felt that this is the first film that he wanted to make. It was his passion and complete commitment to the film that got me interested. Finally, what clicked the most for me is the little boy Yohan who plays my little grandson. He is very gorgeous, beautiful and a smart child but there is something very pure and innocent about him. It is very crucial to the film that the relationship between the grandmother and the grandchild is untouched by any manipulations. Piyush has made this film in a very fairytale manner where there is a timeless quality to the story. You don’t know in which era the story is taking place. It is crucial to the film that the purity and the innocence of the characters are retained. It was necessary for me to develop a genuine relationship for this with Hamid in the film which I have managed to do with Yohan.
Is it easy and fun or difficult to work with kids?
It is both. We forget that children are their own people. They have their own personalities and you cannot just think that you can give orders to a child and the child will have to obey. It doesn’t work like that. If you want purity and the truth, then you have to be involved to get on the same page with them. What was very interesting is that he found me really dumb. He felt that I haven’t got my act together because I didn’t know about the football and I didn’t know about Messi. So, he looked surprised that how is it possible that there are human beings in the world who don’t know who Messi is? He felt really sorry for me. He felt that he needed to educate me. He would show me Messi’s games, pictures, and videos. He felt very responsible that he should educate me about football.
You were one of the leading actresses of the Parallel Cinema, known for its serious content during the 70s
This feels great because it is something that I wanted right from the word go. I felt that the demarcation between both kinds of cinema shouldn’t happen. I think that it is important that these things come together. I am really happy because when I started out in parallel movies people would think that I would sink and drown because I was trying to put my feet in both parallel and commercial movies. But now that seems to have become the norm. This also happened because the movement started really with girls. Mainstream cinema people started realising that there is something available which is beyond all the glamour and dancing around trees. They understood that there is a greater creative satisfaction doing parallel movies. They went out of their way and reduced their payrolls to work in such movies.