SUN GUIDE SHABANA AZMI ON ADAPTING KAIFI & I FOR STAGE BOOK The kind of audience Kaifi Aur Main appeals to are romantics, fans of my MARK father’s songs, of his poetry. All these are integral to the language the book was written in. It wouldn’t be fair to bring it back in English FEBRUARY 14, 2010. SUNDAY MiD DAY 30 www.mid-day.com

Shabana Azmi with her mother Shaukat Kaifi at their Juhu apartment PIC/MAHANAND GUPTA

appeal. A daily routine involved brother Baba and Shabana dressed up in their evening best, and being taken to the neighbourhood hall by the ayah. They would gatecrash Navjoth (Parsi thread ceremony), marriages, and other functions, and eat their fill. “Until the watchman wised up and realised that we couldn’t have been invited for every function,” she recalls. Shaukat was a brutally honest mother. When a nine-year-old Shabana asked her mother why she loved her brother more, Shaukat replied that he THE STORY OF US was a sweet well-mannered child and she loved his company, unlike Shabana would be such a success, but I’ve heard says Nasreen, to which Shabana pips, “It who back-answered. “Can you imagine VETERAN ACTRESS people say that they can read it at one has to work. Just because a certain work any mother talking like that today? go, it’s so interesting,” says Shaukat is a translation, the reader isn’t going to They’d be scared of damaging the SHAUKAT KAIFI AND with a proud smile. She credits the treat it with kid gloves. They expect to child’s psyche. But it worked for me, I success to her simple writing. be satisfied reading the book as is.” started behaving better,” she says. DAUGHTER SHABANA Shabana feels it worked and will work because of its background — India NO CURTAIN SHAUKAT THE AZMI ON LOVE, LIFE, AND before Independence and after, the age HEROINE of rebellion and in the midst of all that, CALL When we’re done with the photoshoot, a love story. “It’s a distinct female voice, However, Kaifi & I will not be adapted THE CHALLENGES OF Shaukat demands to see her one that is at once conformist and non- for stage, says Shabana. “The kind of photographs. She doesn’t like being TRANSLATING YAAD KI conformist,” she says. audience Kaifi Aur Main appeals to are romantics, fans of my father’s songs, of clicked with her walking stick in the REHEGUZAR INTO his poetry. All these are integral to the frame. “My mother is completely vain,” TRANSLATION language the book was written in. It says Shabana fondly. As if to make KAIFI & I QUALMS wouldn’t be fair to bring it back in herself plain, she points to herself and English,” she says. Shaukat: “You notice how I’m dressed Initially, Shaukat did have reservations and how my mother’s dressed.” While JANAKI VISWANATHAN about a translation. “Cheeni (Nasreen) the actress is in a comfortable orange [email protected] liked the book so much, but I was BEING and white salwar-kurta, Shaukat fits in worried that something might be lost.” SHAUKAT’S her role as heroine, in an elaborate The stage adaptation of Yaad ki IT could well be a movie. It’s the black and red sari with matching Reheguzar — Kaifi Aur Main (performed DAUGHTER 1940s. Rich girl, already betrothed, jewellery. To fit the film-like quality of by Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar) In her days as a theatre actress, meets a young communist and falls her book… and life. became a resounding success, making Shaukat, also a full-time mother and madly in love. Girl’s father sneaks her Indeed, a top filmmaker had once Shaukat confident. wife, was obsessed with learning lines. into Mumbai so she can make up her expressed interest in adapting Yaad ki Shabana says translation was a tough “She’d be talking to the dhobi and mind. Finally, she does marry the man Reheguzar as a movie. “After watching call. “Translating it from one regional suddenly, she’d scream out a line of of her dreams. Yaad ki Reheguzar by Saawariya, mum was convinced that language to another is easier, because dialogue,” says Shabana with a laugh. veteran theatre and film actress Shaukat only Sonam Kapoor would be attractive there are similarities and also, her style Shaukat would also dress up like her Kaifi, was published in 2006 and the enough to play her if a film was made,” of writing is very lucid and made up of characters at home. “One day we’d see English version, Kaifi & I, translated by says Shabana with a laugh. Kaifi seems short sentences. But from Hindi to an African woman, another day a mad Nasreen Rahman, launched this week. tougher to cast, as the actress says, “He English was a daunting task,” she says. woman and so on,” she recalls. Once, a At their sunlit Juhu home, Shaukat (Kaifi) was such a beautiful man, I can’t Nasreen agrees: “Any act of young Shabana told her father very Kaifi, daughter Shabana Azmi and even imagine who could play him. translation is a challenge because the seriously that she was afraid her mother Nasreen Rahman talk in turns, Hrithik (Roshan) maybe?” she asks. spirit of the text must be retained.” She was losing her mind. “He explained that sometimes overlapping each other as Nasreen adds that she had earlier says the prose struck her the first time she was an actress and I must support Kaifi Azmi seems to come alive in the watched Shaukat’s films and later, she heard it. “It was full of her,” she says. Years later, Shabana conversation. observed her over decades. “I admired contemporary metaphors but very vivid. imbibed the same method when A translation was in the works even her forthrightness, her sense of clothes. It was a magical experience,” she preparing for her roles in Godmother, before Yaad ki Reheguzar was published. She’s lived her life like a work of art. I recalls. Nasreen read it several times Umrao Jaan, even Makdee. Nasreen Rahman who heard an extract don’t quite know another life that’s truly because, “I wanted to capture the Shabana recalls a childhood of in the year 2000 was so taken in, she heroic as hers is,” she says. spontaneity, her voice. At some point I limited means but pretty clothes told Shaukat that she’d want to do it. Kaifi & I is published by Zubaan, had to leave the Urdu original and look nonetheless because Shaukat was “I never thought Yaad ki Reheguzar available for Rs 295 at it as an English text. Now it works,” always particular about aesthetic