From the time I saw her in Shyam Benegal's Ankur in 1973, I was intrigued about Shabana. She looked completely different from the other actresses of her time: very arty, very intelligent, and very Bohemian. And what a mind-blowing actress! Arth proved that beyond doubt.

Over the years, with a number of exhibitions behind me, I have counted Shobha De and Hema Malini among those celebrities who are also my friends. These were two women I could relate to, even if they were as different from each other as caviar from idli. What they did have in common was a certain warmth, a radiance, an aura that sends out positive vibrations to all those around them. Shabana Azmi was the only one left whom I really wanted to invite to my art exhibition. So I called her up at the Hyatt Regency in New Delhi, where she was staying then (before a performance of her play Tumhari Amrita in 1995).

``What kind of women do you represent, Anjana?'' she asked me. For want of a better explanation, I said: ``I am told that my women are a combination of Shabana Azmi, Shobha De and I.'' To which she replied: ``Oh, lots of people tell me I resemble Shobha De.'' The telephone receiver almost slipped from my hand. Good God! Shabana Azmi, international celebrity, actress par excellence, crusader for women's rights, looking for endorsement for her looks! She is where she is not for her looks, but her personality, talent, drive and convictions.

But I learnt one important lesson that day. No matter what you are, or who you are, for a woman, her looks are of primary importance. And to hell with feminism and all that bosh. A woman is as good as she looks. Everything comes after that. I reminded myself: ``C'mon, she's as human as you are. So the fault is yours if she didn't compare herself with Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer or Medha Patkar.'' But rankle it still did, for that's the image Shabana has created for herself, and after a point one becomes a prisoner of one's image there are no two ways about that.

Where Shabana scores in the appearances department is in the way she dresses. Her clothes fit her personality to perfection and there's never anything filmi or flashy about her. And with her kind of intellect, it's amazing how she did the dhak-dhak kind of roles along with the desi and the arty ones. Although today she appears more at ease in the role of an activist and a parliamentarian, she has always done full justice to every role she has played, both on and off screen.

Except the time her image let her down (or is it that she let down her own image?). I keep coming back to that because I was, to put it bluntly, quite disillusioned. At my exhibition, when a journalist told her, ``There's something of you in Anjana's paintings,'' she replied curtly: ``Oh, forget it! They all look like her.'' Maybe a little tact, a little warmth was all that was required.

But again, maybe the fault was mine for placing her in my compartment of pre-conceived notions of how a certain celebrity should be. They can't all be overflowing with the milk of human kindness. They, too, have their good and bad days. They also have their little insecurities and human flaws. But then, don't we all?

Shabana has the most eloquent eyes I've ever seen -- these are her greatest physical assets. We spent time talking over coffee at Hyatt and what emerged was a woman who, no matter how great an actress she is, was a woman like any other. And a celebrity just like any other. She's logical, analytical and precise. If I took to Hema and Shobha from the heart, I got drawn to Shabana from the mind.

All my post-teenage life I'd been told by all and sundry that I resembled this new actress called Shabana Azmi. In the mid-'70s, when the Beatles and the Beatniks were in, I dared to be different with my saris and long, straight hair. I even had people come up to me and say, ``Oh sorry, I thought you were Shabana Azmi.'' It had become the bane of my life.

And recently, when Gautam Rajadhyaksha and Micky Contractor (star make-up expert) were photographing me, they remarked: ``You know Anjana, you're a compliment to Shabana, like a younger version of her.'' When I mentioned this to Shobha De, her instant reply was: ``No, not at all, I think you and I have much more in common.'' So, the not-so-merry-go-round continues. Who resembles whom is not really the point. It's who likes whom. And that, dear reader, has come across quite clearly, hasn't it?!