Fan following

A good friend S and I are bigtime fans of Shabana Azmi. She, to such an extent, that she collects and wears shawls much like her object of admiration. Its one of the strongest bonds between us- our admiration for anything to do with the ace actress. And hence its no wonder that we watch every movie of hers(at the theater, if possible) and if there's a play in town featuring her- you think we'd not go?

So this one year, 2003 to be precise, we decided to catch Tehzeeb at Loehmanns Cinemas in Fairfax, VA. It was a week day- a Tuesday I believe. She, having cleared her schedule, made sure her daughter was fed and taken care of, her husband was suitably entertained with whatever it is that guys like to be entertained with- we finally made it to the theater. We were excited, it had been a while since we'd seen Shabana Azmi on the big screen. Our last had been Godmother, released in 1999. 4 yrs seemed like eternity!

The online movie schedule had mentioned there was a show at 7:30pm. So 7pm saw us at the ticket counter with a loud "2 for Tehzeeb please".

Voice : "Ma'am Tehzeeb went away last Friday, its been replaced by Janasheen!"

She : "Shucks!" and looks at me disappointed. Two disappointed, woebegone faces!

Voice : "Its Tuesday ma'aam tickets are half-price. Want to try Janasheen?"

She : "Alright, sure!" (to me) "We've come this far, why not as well na?"

Me : "Errrrrrrrm its Fardeen Khan yo! I never watch his movies, never want to!"

She : " Its ok na yaar. Its half-price. How bad can it be?"

Me : "Erm, it CAN be very very bad!"

She : "Chal samosa khaate hai"

Me : bleat, bleat!(sigh, no use)

So a plate of samosa chaat and mango lassi later, we found ourselves in the movie hall with 10 other people who had decided to use the half-price offer to put up with this misery that included Fardeen Khan, his dad the great Feroz Khan and Celina Jaitley(horror of horrors, shudder!)

Now the one thing I didn't know about this friend of mine was the fact that she doesn't believe in walking out of movie theaters mid-way. I do it all the time, its second nature to me. For her, its unthinkable and an injustice to the makers of the movie- however bad it may be. Such nobility! So 10 mins later, I bleat again. "S, chal lets go".

She : "Arrey rukh na, we'll see how it pans out. Another couple of hours."

Every 10 mins, bleating continued to no avail.

And we left the cinema hall at the sighting of "The End" sign. I could have died before then.

Another noteworthy "Shabana Azmi fan following" episode was the time when there was the staging of "Kaifi aur Main"- Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar's narrative reading of some of the best pennings of the life of Kaifi Azmi and Shaukhat Kaifi.

This friend S had gifted a beautiful handmade paper notebook for my birthday just a few months before this episode. She being somewhat of a poetess herself, she'd written a beautiful piece as a preface. I was raring to make use of this beauty. I figured this would be the best paper on which to get an autograph from our idol, Shabana Azmi. So I was armed with this book, S inaugarated her new Shabana-esque shawl for the occasion(but, of course). Thus we set forth, with our usual enthusiasm and joie de vivre we reserved for such occasions.

We went, we showed our tickets, got checked in, found decent seats and sat back in eager anticipation. Show was scheduled to begin at 6pm, we were in our seats by 5:45. 6pm happened, 6:15 happened, 6:30 happened and finally the MC walked up to the podium.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to 'Kaifi aur main'. We apologize for the delay . We also regret to inform you that Ms Azmi has been stranded at the Chicago airport due to a snowstorm. She is, as we speak, waiting for the airport authorities to allow flights out of Chicago, it will take her 2 hrs to get here. So you have two options- you can wait here till she comes- which might be as late as 10pm or later(depending on how long it takes for flights to leave Chicago), Or you can request for a refund of your tickets. Again we apologize for the inconvenience and we will keep you posted of her status at regular intervals".

We look at each other with dismay. "Oh, no!"

I recalled the Janasheen episode and bleated " Please S, lets not sit here, she might never show up. Who knows when Chicago will clear flights to take off?"

She : "Hm, lets see for another 30 mins then"

Me(gulp!): "Wokay". And silently settled in the seat to listen to Jaswinder in the interim.

Every 15 mins, the MC would update us with nothing significantly different. "She's still at the airport", "She's VERY upset at this delay", "She's changed her saree and is all set to perform" etc etc. Which meant nothing, really!

45 mins later, we decided to call it quits.

Two sad fans, one that vowed to never use the book again, the other to never use the shawl again.

Footnote : Years later, we managed to watch 15, Park Avenue and Honeymoon Travels featuring our idol-but never at the theaters and never together :). We also did manage to watch Tehzeeb when it finally came out on DVD. Our admiration continues strong to this day and right now moi is contemplating getting a hair cut just like my idol's in Honeymoon travels. Seren, on the other hand, will have none of it!