It was a quiet evening on IIMUN’s YouTube channel when Shabana Azmi pulled back the curtain on the religion that surrounds her life. She recalls her father, the legendary Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi, as a staunch atheist, and her mother, Shaukat Kaifi, a theatre and film actress who kept religion on the sidelines—just a ritualistic echo in the background.
When she casually dropped the words "mashallah" and "inshallah" into conversation, Javed Akhtar shot back, "Why do you keep saying this? What if someone says 'prabhu ji ki marzi' all the time, how will you feel?" The couple’s banter reveals a domestic clash that feels almost cinematic: a love story written in words and silence.
Her own confession is simple, yet layered: "I am a Muslim, I love Eid, Urdu, the food, but we don’t read namaz. The concept of God is a private matter, and the state shouldn’t meddle." The line cuts across the old binaries of faith and identity, suggesting that culture can exist without dogma.
Behind the scenes, her household mirrors the film industry’s own blend of tradition and modernity. Javed, a veteran lyricist who once married screenwriter Honey Irani, now stands beside Shabana as an atheist partner, while their children, filmmaker Zoya Akhtar and actor‑filmmaker Farhan Akhtar, grow up in a space where cinema and faith intersect in quiet ways.
In the end, Shabana’s words spark a larger conversation: can a family be both deeply rooted in cultural rituals and entirely free from religious practice? For the audience of AirNews, it’s a reminder that the stories we love on screen often mirror the complex stories we live.