There is perhaps no better reminder of what experience can do for an actor than Shabana Azmi appearing in two films on the same Friday and looking like two entirely different performers. In Batwara 1947, she is Mai, an elderly Hindu woman left behind in the upheaval of Partition, carrying her loneliness, vulnerability, dignity and enormous emotional weight almost without needing to announce any of it. The performance is deliberately understated, rooted in the frailty and humility of a woman who has lost almost everything but refuses to lose herself. Her character is central to the emotional fabric of the film, with Sunny Deol’s Sikandar Mirza choosing to protect her amid the communal tensions surrounding them.
And then comes Awarapan 2. The transformation is almost startling. Here is Shabana Azmi as a powerful ganglord, introduced with an ultra-glamorous appearance, highlighted hair and a ferocious screen presence that immediately changes the temperature of the film. The contrast is not simply about costume or make-up. It is about the authority with which she inhabits two completely opposite worlds. One performance asks for vulnerability and emotional restraint; the other demands menace, control and an almost effortless command over the room.
That is where the advantage of an actor’s experience becomes most visible. Azmi does not seem to be playing age, glamour, vulnerability or menace. She seems to be playing the person underneath all of it. That distinction matters because experienced actors can make even the most obvious transformation feel lived-in rather than performed. It is also why her presence in Awarapan 2 becomes more intriguing as the film progresses.
There is another interesting possibility here. The closing portions of Awarapan 2 appear to leave the door open for another chapter, and with the franchise already generating talk of Awarapan 3, Azmi’s character could potentially become much more significant in the next instalment. If that happens, the casting could prove to be one of the sequel’s smartest decisions. After watching Shabana Azmi move from a vulnerable Partition survivor in one film to a formidable underworld figure in another, the thought of her being positioned as a major antagonist in the next Awarapan chapter is less a stretch and more an intriguing prospect.
At a time when actors are often discussed in terms of their image, Shabana Azmi continues to demonstrate the greater luxury of being an actor: the ability to disappear into completely different people. And at 75, that ability may be more valuable than ever.