Farewell my friend: Shabana Azmi pays tributes to Girish Karnad
It was a collaboration that started with Shyam Benegal’s “Nishant” and now 44 years later, Shabana Azmi remembers theatre and film veteran Girish Karnad as a true intellect, whose life cannot be described in a single sound byte.Azmi on Saturday finally opened up about her work relationship with Karnad, who died at the age of 81 at his residence in Bengaluru after prolonged illness on June 10.In a Facebook post, titled “Farewell My Friend”, the actor said she first heard about Karnad during the making of Benegal’s 1974 feature “Ankur”, when he assisted the director with the editing.”Few people know that when Shyam Benegal first made ‘Ankur’ it was a very lengthy film. Shyam roped in Girish to help him edit the narrative. That’s when I first heard of Girish.” Azmi recalled that when Karnad was director at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), he showed immense maturity in handling the students’ strikes that she said were headed by actor Naseeruddin Shah. “It was a troubled tenureship because the students were on strike and very hostile. But Girish handled it with great maturity and compassion. Legend has it that Naseeruddin Shah was in the forefront of the strike and there were some unpleasant altercations between them. “But to Girish’s remarkable credit that didn’t deter him from recommending Naseer to Shyam for a very important role in ‘Nishant’ — his first break in films that launched his career and established him as a fine actor. A lesser person than Girish could have been revengeful.”
