'Should have worked harder at song and dance

Shabana Azmi turns 72 today. September 18, but she remains one of the busiest actors in India.

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After receiving two standing ovations at the Toronto International Film Festival for her film What's Love Got To Do With It. "In Hindi cinema, substantial roles for senior actors are being written and I am grateful that I have been getting some meaty roles in this phase of my career."

As you turn a year older, what are your thoughts on the way things are for you and the world around you?

The world has definitely changed post COVID.

It has been a stressful period and the repercussions will be felt for a long time.

I hope the coming years will see a greater articulation of our need for each other and a sense of gratitude that the worst is hopefully behind us.

I have done a lot of introspection and feel that we have more than we need of everything.

I want to simplify my life and

follow the dictum: Give till it hurts.

Looking back at your career, unprecedented do you feel a sense of pride and satisfaction?

I am lucky to have been at the right place at the right time.

With Ankur, the parallel cinema movement started in Hindi films and I was fortunate to get a spate of strong women characters that broke the prevalent norms of the time.

When I did John Schlesinger's Madame Sousatzka with Shirley MacLaine in 1988, it was very rare to get an Indian actor in such a major role.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was writing the script and suggested that it might be good to change the Jewish mother into an Indian one.