Tanvi Azmi Says Her ‘Rebellion’ Began After Marrying Baba Azmi: ‘Brahmin Girl Married A Muslim’

Actress Tanvi Azmi has always played strong, assertive roles on screen. In real life, she considers herself rebellious, though this trait, she says, was dormant for a while. Her notable performance as Ranveer Singh’s mother in Bajirao Mastani got her rave reviews, and she recently starred in Amazon Prime’s series Dil, Dosti, Dilemma with Anushka Sen.

In the show, Tanvi plays Anushka’s grandmother, and they often clash. In an interview with Indianexpress.com, Tanvi was asked if she was rebellious as a child. She said that she was obedient, but something changed after she got married. “I was an obedient child and then something happened… I always had some rebellious blood in me, but it was dormant. However, there came a point when I rebelled and how! It happened when I got married and it was a lot. I felt like the whole of Mumbai had erupted because a Brahmin Maharashtrian girl had married a Muslim man and it was just like the end of the world for many. For me, that was when rebellion began and it stayed, it just never went away,” she said.

In her latest web series, Tanvi Azmi plays a grandmother who is both kind and strict. When asked if her own grandparents influenced this character, she explained, “I grew up in a joint family, I know what it feels like to have so many people around you constantly. So it felt like a very familiar surrounding. I miss my grandfather deeply, who pampered me no end and I thought that’s how men treat women. I was the apple of his eye, he would carry me till I was 8 years old. What is seen in our show is not something children of today will experience, especially in the urban society where parents don’t send their kids away to live with grandparents.”

Tanvi Azmi comes from a family of achievers, including poet Kaifi Azmi, actress Shaukat Azmi, Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar. When asked if she feels pressured by her family’s fame, Tanvi said, “It feels great to be a part of a family like that, but it never daunted me. It never made me feel like I need to achieve what others had achieved. That is their journey, I am happy with my journey as long as I get good and diverse work. My focus and my thrust is to do work that challenges me. My focus has never been that this person in my family has done this much or that much. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, so I have never compared myself to anybody or felt lesser because of the achievers in my family. I feel extremely proud of each and every one of them.”

Tanvi is married to cinematographer Baba Azmi.