The actress can leave you spellbound or stirred, the activist can be engaging or annoying - a passionate woman, occasionally theatrical, very bright and a touch intimidating....

"I am now comfortable with my looks and age," she declares confidently. "I am happy with body watching at the moment - there are phases when it's very interesting. I have spent so much time being unhappy with my looks, when actually recognition comes for the way you are - a total persona....

"There is a need for the feminine gaze. Women have a different way of looking at things, not necessarily better, but different. Which is why it is important to have women directors and writers somewhere filtering in Hindi cinemas. It is extremely refreshing," she emphasises. That these films are now considered potential box-office successes only adds to her satisfaction.

"I have become allergic to playing someone younger than myself: it does not work. But that does not necessarily mean I would play older woman stereotypes." Not for her the doting or vengeful mother/wife parts that provide grist to the tearjerker that Hindi filmdom brews with regularity. Her dues to populist cinema have been complete years ago. Her father, Kaifi Azmi, once said that her acting in Hindi potboilers was an effort to build up her constituency as an actress. She can now afford to forget the Amar Akbar Anthony days.

Although she won a National Award on her debut in Ankur, in 1974 and followed that up with three more, Azmi is very self-critical. The last film that she liked herself in was Khandhar in 1984, till Fire came along.

It is a performance she is proud of. "It is as Radha in Fire that I have come closest to perfection, where I feel I have made the least number of mistakes."

Writer-poet, Javed Akhtar's name is a constant refrain in Azmi's conversation. He is like a touchstone for her, she, the ardent wife. It is Javed this and Jadu that....