Shabana Azmi jokes she had to say yes to Dabba Cartel as ‘bahu Shibani Dandekar ne likha, bete Farhan Akhtar ne produce kia’: ‘How dare I…?’

Shabana Azmi said that she said yes to Dabba Cartel because her son and daughter-in-law were involved in the making of the show.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | February 27, 2025 12:53 PM IST

3 min read

shabana azmi farhan akhtar shibani dandekar

Shabana Azmi (left) said yes to Dabbar Cartel because of Farhan Akhtar and Shibani Dandekar (right). (Photo: Shabana Azmi, Shibani Dandekar/Instagram)

Shabana Azmi, who will soon be seen in Netflix’s series Dabba Cartel, has been promoting her show for the past few days and in a recent conversation, she was asked if she said yes to this show only because she was locked in a house during the pandemic with her family members, who are also producers of the show, and had no option but to do this. Shabana joked that the circumstances were actually much “dire” than this as her son and daughter-in-law were involved with this.

In a chat shared on Netflix India’s YouTube channel, Shaba said, “No, it wasn’t really like that. The circumstances were much more dire than this.” She then added, “Kyunki bahu ne likha aur beta produce kar raha hai toh meri kya majaal ki main kisi tarah se, aur voh bhi covid ke zamane mein, na bol du. Toh voh toh maine accept kar lia (Because my daughter-in-law wrote it and my son was producing it, so how dare I, and that too during covid, say no to this. So I accepted it.)” Shabana’s step son Farhan Akhtar is producing the show via his company Excel Entertainment. Farhan’s wife Shibani Dandekar is the writer of the show.

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Shabana is married to Farhan’s father Javed Akhtar and they have been together since 1984. Shabana has previously opened up about her relationship with Farhan and Zoya Akhtar and said that they developed a great bond because of Javed’s first wife and the kids’ mother, Honey Irani. She 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 added, “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.”

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