pune when a sevenyearold shabana azmi asked her father for a blonde doll with blue eyes she was handed a black doll insteadhe explained to me that black is beautiful too said the 66yearold daughter of poet kaifi azmispeaking at the pune international literary festival shabana azmi and javed akhtar opened up about various facets of their lifeborn in an era when the progressive writers movement inspired antiimperialistic and leftoriented values the star couple imbibed these values while growing upwhatever you are told in your childhood goes to your bones there are certain values that we imbibe while growing up and when these values are undermined and violated it bothers us akhtar saidnationalism was one of the values instilled in akhtar from his early age he recalled the tricolour being hoisted at their home it was later folded and kept in the topmost section of a shelf with due respectwhen today i see people walking away when national anthem is played it hurts me he saidgender equality was another value that both of them grew up with as kids but when reality hit them during teenage years it astonished them gender equality was an absolute given at my house all the women shaukat kaifi noted theatre and film actress and wife of poet kaifi azmi and sultana jafri wife of noted urdu writer ali sardar jafri were working when my mom wasnt around my father combed my hair and sent us to school i was 19 when i realised that what i take for granted as equality of gender was actually an exception rather than the rule and it came as a huge surprise to meakhtar too added my mother and aunts were all working women the knowledge of inequality came late in my life i was 18 or 19 years old when i came across an incident of domestic violence i was blissfully unaware of itthe couple also spoke about the importance and strength of pluralismwe celebrated everything holi diwali eid in the commune that we lived beside us lived the family of marathi actor and comedian sudhir joshi his mother was conservative and orthodox and did not want us to touch her kitchen commodities i would intentionally touch her things and she would get angry but the very next moment she would come and hug us but today something like that could spark a communal riot she saidon a lighter note azmi said that though they shared a lot of similar things they could never tolerate each others choice of movies and hence needed two tv sets at home that is the secret of a successful marriage ek biwi aur do tv akhtar quipped