Shabana Azmi credits Javed Akhtar’s ‘generous’ ex-wife Honey Irani for relationship with Zoya, Farhan: ‘I wasn’t the stepmother…’

In 1984, Javed and Shabana got married, while his divorce from Honey was finalised between 1984 and 1985. Throughout this challenging period, Honey never expressed bitterness for either her ex-husband or for Shabana, focusing instead on her children’s well-being. Today, Shabana shares a close bond with both Zoya and Farhan while she calls Honey ‘family.’ In a recent interview, she credited Honey, for the relationship she has been able to nurture with the two filmmakers, despite a painful divorce their parents had to go through.

The veteran actor, speaking about how she bonded with young Zoya and Farhan, told Zoom, “It is because of Honey’s generosity! It could’ve not been possible if Honey would not have been so generous to share them [with me]. She did that from the time they (Zoya and Farhan) were children. When they got that from their mother and released that I wasn’t the ‘stepmother’ they had read about in fairy tales, it became so much easier.”

She further opened up about how she didn’t pressurise Zoya and Farhan into accepting her and spoke about keeping the relationship natural and organic. “I didn’t push myself on them and didn’t too hard. I just let it be. I let the water flow its course. It is a really beautiful relationship. I would give a lot of credit to Honey for that but also to myself, Javed and the children. Today, when you see us, we are like a family. She (Honey) is a family member,” said the Fire actor.

She admitted that separation between couples, especially if they’re married, is always ‘painful’ and it was no different in the case of Javed and Honey. It also affected her negatively. “A divorce between a man and a woman — something written on a piece of paper — doesn’t change the relationship that they’ve had. That’s was my line in the film, Arth, where my character (Pooja) tells Inder (Kulbhushan Karbanda), ‘Kavita (Smita Patil) tumse woh bandhan chahati hai jo ek dastakhat se bhi toot sakta hai.’ Having said that, I do feel people are hasty in judging. Divorce is very painful for the three people involved, hence people shouldn’t judge. Aisa nahin hai ki it was easy, it was painful and every time there is a divorce, it is always painful,” recalled Shabana.

When Honey and Javed were going through a separation, Shabana ensured that she maintained a dignified silence amid her fans questioning her stance on feminism. However, she asserted that both the media and her industry peers weren’t judgmental or harsh about her decision to marry Javed. “Both Javed saab and I are feminists so my fans were startled because they saw it as a blow to the feminism they had associated me with. But at that time, I had two choices — either duck and say nothing or explain myself which would’ve hurt too many people around me. So staying silent was the sensible thing to do because obviously when people were saying, “How could you let us down?” “You’re a feminist! How could you do this to another woman!” the desire to explain myself was very strong but the fact that I didn’t, help the healing,” said the Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani actor.

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