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Even as Anil Kapoor is promoting Dil Dhadakne Do, his film with Zoya Akhtar, Shabana Azmi is working in the Sonam Kapoor-starrer Neerja. The veteran actress plays Sonam's mother in the film.
"I am shooting with Anil Kapoor’s daughter for Neerja while Anil recently shot for Zoya’s Dil Dhadakne Do and is now busy promoting the film. How cool is that!” Shabana exclaims.
She recalls her long association with the Kapoors. “Anil and his wife Sunita have been friends with Jadu (Javed Akhtar) and me for 30 years. When Sonam first told her father she wanted to be an actor, Anil sent her to me to dissuade her. I ended up doing the opposite. I encouraged her to follow her heart, much to Anil’s exasperation," she says.
Shabana feels the bond between the Kapoors and Akhtars is very endearing. "Anil working with Zoya and Sonam working with me... it seems so splendidly cyclic. It is very gratifying when when one’s kids bond with one’s friends. I no longer find it corny when I see those Hindi movies of the 1960s where the two fathers, played often by Nasir Husain and Raj Mehra, would fix the son’s marriages with the other’s daughter.”
Not that Shabana has any such wish. "Our desires are far less dramatic. We just want the two families to continue to be friends."