The elegance of Umrao Jaan : Bollywood News

Shabana Azmi as Khanum Sahib

“Life for her was like the game of chess.

With the kings, the queens and the pawns.

The pawns were many, the queen just one - She! ”

Khanum was the high priestess of a high class kotha, which aristocrats and cultured nawabs frequented. It was a world of brocaded shawls and rich embellishments, witty conversations, poetry recitals, tobacco and paan, trading of feelings and breaking of hearts. A world created by Khanum with astuteness.

Khanum had love and luxury to give, but at her own terms. To the world she was the perfect courtesan: as she put her heart on ice, never allowing feelings to overpower her sensibilities. At once caustic, at once charming; at once commanding, at once cajoling; at once shrewd, at once smooth ……indeed there was none quite like Khanum. It was Khanum who christened Amiran as Umrao. With that she also gave her nothing that Amiran had bargained for. Unfortunately for Umrao, Khanum’s coffers were never too full; her cup of greed, never too empty.

Khanum is given incredible flesh and blood by one of cinema’s brightest luminaries Shabana Azmi. She says , “ I think J.P.Dutta really loves the character of Khanum. He was very clear in his brief to me. He said that Khanum is an aesthete. People were sent to her to imbibe manners. She had to have the charm, etiquette and vile of a sophisticate but sometimes one had be able to see the coarseness. To me there is a certain artifice about Khanum but there is a core that is real and that is what I kept in mind. J.P.Dutta has really lifted the character of Khanum by adding one particular sequence at the end of the film which was not there in the novel. This has taken the character to a different level.”

As Director J.P Dutta and Shabana Azmi team up professionally for the very first time in Umrao Jaan, it is the union of two pathological cinema lovers whose sheer talent has added immense dignity to cinema history.

Indeed, in her world Khanum the courtesan commanded. In her world Shabana Azmi the artiste commands. And when the twain meet, the latent fire is enough to leave blazing trails.