by Subhash K Jha

Her forays into international films have been fairly chequered. From the possessive South Indian mother of the piano prodigy in John Schlesinger's Madame Sousatzka to the conniving princess in Blake Edward's Revenge Of The Pink Panther...

And now Shabana Azmi flies on January 15 to England to play the central character of a Bangladeshi woman living in East London. Says Shabana, "It's all about being at the right place at the right time.

If I play the protagonist in Aparna Sen's 15 Park Avenue, I also play the protagonist in the BBC film. To have these opportunities at my age is just so fortunate. I play this woman whose husband gets himself another wife. Her daughter is hopping wife.

Finally my character leaves the husband and comes into her own. But it's done in a way that brings in a lot of cultural complexities . She's not a victim at all. I like that. It's written by Tannika Gupta who wrote Waiting Room."

The film is to be directed by Hettie McDonald (who made the film Beautiful Thing, about gay love) will be completed in February.

What makes this project even more interesting is the fact that Ayesha Dharker plays Shabana's daughter. Earlier Dharker had played the same part in Roland Joffe's City Of Joy.