Invariably, stars share a love-hate relationship with journalists. But not Saba Azad. Thus, as she plays a journalist in Zee5 series Crime Beat, it is not her role that has made her understand the journalistic fraternity better. She has always known, “How difficult it is to be a journalist and more importantly to stand by the truth if they choose to do so.” Even in her childhood days, she observed them closely as many with a distinct socialistic bent of mind were her parents’ friends. Of course, today as she steps into the shoes of Maya, she does not have any one particular journalist in mind and certainly none from the popular media.
Indeed, her Maya is righteous, whose ‘moral compass is very centred’. Niece of legendary theatre-person Safdar Hashmi, art for Saba comes loaded with responsibility of representation. Like her mamu (maternal uncle) whom she remembers very fondly as a ‘dynamo of creative energy’ she doesn’t see, ‘one’s world view as divorced from what one’s art is saying’. Part of Hashmi’s legacy, she states, “Art should reflect and comment upon the times we live in. I will never do a film that propagates hate, false narratives, divisive politics or a propaganda film.”
But is it possible to say the right thing in a crime series, whose prime purpose is to thrill and chill? She nods in the affirmative and shares how one of the many takeaways of the series is the long arduous journey between the crime happening and it making headlines. Besides, she observes, “It’s also about who sells the news and who buys it.” Effusive about her director Sudhir Mishra, show-runner and co-director of the series, she says, “He is like an energiser, has endless energy almost of a first-timer, doesn’t carry the burden of being a legend. From the very onset, he makes it a collaborative effort which cinema anyway is.”
Acting is collaboration
She is equally upbeat about her co-star Saqib Saleem, with whom she reunited after a gap of 14 years. Back in 2011, she made her debut alongside him in Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge. No wonder it was incredibly easy to pick up threads with him and adds, “When you are young and work together you not only keep in touch but also wish each other well.” Even otherwise, she feels that acting is not competition but collaboration and equation with co-actors is a simple, ‘you succeed I succeed’. Precisely why she loves working in an ensemble cast, as headlining a show like Who’s Your Gynac whose second season is around the corner. Being the face of the show, she admits, “You have to carry the weight of its success or failure, but its happy pressure.” However, if you think Saba, who has been around in tinsel town for a while, is waiting for her dream role, well, every role is a dream come true for her. Most certainly, ones that are awaited as well.
Ease of being
Apart from an Anurag Kashyap film, she will be seen in the biopic of the first female singer of Kashmir. Born to a Kashmiri mother and a Punjabi father, she is proud to be a melting pot of both cultures. Her petite frame might defy her claim ‘aloo parantha runs in my veins’, she confesses to being a foodie and needless to add, a proud Punjaban. She gushes, “Punjabis have this ease of being; they are extremely happy and earnest people of the soil. We are all about makhan and ghee.” And also being forthright. If her character in Crime Beat is a woman trying to find her place in the world of journalism, in real life too she admits, “Women have to work twice as hard and even then we are not paid as much as a man for the same job.”
So, all of you who only see her as this superstar’s girlfriend, remember Saba is a gifted woman in her own right, a musician, theatre-person and an actor all rolled into one. And though ‘I am hardly qualified to pontificate’, her relationship advice is simple and profound, “Stay true to yourself, let nothing compromise your sense of self.”
(Crime Beat is streaming on Zee5)
