: Mysuru Literature Festival 2021: India’s greatest strength is composite culture, pluralism #IndiaNEWS #News Actor Shabana Azmi delves deep into fundamentalism, lesbianism and misogyny “I grew

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Mysuru Literature Festival 2021: India’s greatest strength is composite culture, pluralism #IndiaNEWS #News
Actor Shabana Azmi delves deep into fundamentalism, lesbianism and misogyny



“I grew up in a household where all festivals were celebrated with great joy without any distinction as all festivals are a part of our culture. �



Mysore/Mysuru: “Both majority and minority religious fundamentalism are a mirror reflection of each other. They both feed into the same mind-set. It is important that religious fundamentalism of any kind needs to be confronted. This is what I have learnt from my father Kaifi Azmi. India’s greatest strength is her composite culture and her pluralism. �



These were the words of Padma Bhushan Shabana Azmi, actor, activist, philanthropist and a true woman of substance.   She was speaking on the theme ‘Lights, Camera, Action: A cinematic tale’ last evening at the second virtual session of the Fifth Edition of Mysuru Literature Festival.



As the session began, Shubha Sanjay Urs, Chairperson of Mysuru Literary Forum and Charitable Trust, introduced and welcomed Shabana Azmi while Sam Cherian Vice-Chairman of the Trust introduced moderator Maithili Rao who is a well-known film critic, analyst and the author of the book, ‘Smitha Patil A Brief Incandescence’.



“I grew up in a household where all festivals were celebrated with great joy without any distinction as all festivals are a part of our culture,� she asserted and later on engaged the viewers by talking about her numerous films and various roles.



She spoke about fundamentalism while replying to a question based on the movie ‘Mee Raqsam’, directed by her brother Baba Azmi. “As I have grown up in a secular atmosphere, it was but natural that our family would take on a subject like this head on,� she said.



On constructed authenticity



Shabana Azmi mesmerised the viewers with her free flow of energetic and charismatic talk and filled the available time with numerous interesting anecdotes and memories and she covered her entire journey starting from her student days when she had set up a theatre group with Farooq Shaikh till her recent tele serial “The Empire� where she plays the role of Aisan Daulat Begum, mother of Mughal king Babar.



She said that it was exciting to play the role of a strong tribal woman who was a ‘King Maker’ and to research to get the costumes right and not to fall prey to the clichéd template of Mughal-e-Azam. She called assembling the right look for any role as “constructed authenticity�.



Accepting lesbian relationship



Airing her opinion on the short film ‘Sheer Qorma’, which deals with the acceptance of a lesbian relationship by the family (which won her the best actress award at the Boston International Film Festival recently), Shabana felt that the situation of LGBT community has improved a lot since the movie ‘Fire’ (an erotic romantic drama) was released 25 years ago.

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