Shabana Azmi
Sayyida Shabana Azmi (Hindi: शबाना आज़मी; Urdu: شبانہ اعظمی; born 18 September 1950) is an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Born to two members of the Communist Party of India who were both leading lights of IPTA, Azmi made her film debut in 1974. She soon became one of the leading actresses of Parallel Cinema, a left wing "New Wave" movement which received tremendous government patronage during the regimes of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. During those years, Azmi was showered with honours and awards, including a record of five National Awards, four Filmfare Awards and several international honours. Her films, of which there are around 120, are among the best examples of a form of Progressivism which reveled in reviling and deriding Indian society, its customs and traditions, thereby securing the appreciation of international audiences and Indian "intellectuals" of a left wing persuasion. Since 1988, she has acted in several foreign projects, but made no mark in that field.In addition to acting, Azmi is a social and women's rights activist. A champion of liberalism and modernity, she had a prolonged affair with the poet and screenwriter Javed Akhtar, the married father of two young children, who divorced his wife in order to marry Azmi. Herself a barren Muslim woman, she is a "Goodwill Ambassador" of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) which seeks to spread contraception and abortion in India in order to limit that country's population. In appreciation of Azmi's life and works, the Congress party's government gave her a nominated (unelected) membership of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament.
Personal facts
| Alias (AKA) | शबाना आज़मी |
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| Birth date | September 18, 1950 |
| Birth name | Shabana Kaifi Azmi |
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