Javed Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar run away from her cooking, says Shabana Azmi: ‘Only my father would…’

Actor Shabana Azmi admitted she was not a good cook in a new interview. Shabana said neither lyricist-husband Javed Akhtar, nor his children filmmaker-actor Farhan Akhtar and filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, were a fan of her cooking. In fact, they run away when she enters the kitchen. Shabana added her talent is to ‘burn’ food. Also read: Shabana Azmi recalls Javed Akhtar’s most romantic gift

Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar married in 1984. He was earlier married to Honey Irani and had two children – Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar – from his first marriage. Shabana spoke about her family’s reaction to her cooking skills in a new interview.

In a recent interaction with YouTuber Kamiya Jani of Curly Tales, Shabana spoke about her lack of culinary skills. She joked, “Mere mein bohot hunar hai cooking ka (I am very talented when it comes to cooking). It is like if you are making the best dish in the world, and I walk into the kitchen and you tell me that you’re going out for a second and ask me to stir it, by the time you come back it will be burnt.”

When asked about her lack of ‘talent’, and if Javed Akhtar runs away from her cooking, she said, “So this is one talent I never had. And if ever I tell people that I am going to cook, slowly everybody slinks away. Only mere pyaare abba, Kaifi Azmi sahab, would eat my kacchhi roti and say bohot lazeez hai (My father would even eat an uncooked roti made by me and say it tastes delicious). So I can’t cook unfortunately. Woh (Javed Akhtar) aur Farhan, aur Zoya aur Baba and Tanvi, woh sabse zyada bhagte hai (Javed Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar, brother Baba and his wife, actor Tanvi Azmi, are the first ones to run away from my cooking).”

In the same interview, Shabana also revealed that she and Javed Akhtar had tried to break up multiple times ‘because of the children’. She recalled the challenges and difficulties they faced as Javed was a married man, when they fell in love.