Shama Zaidi

Shama Zaidi Biography

Shama Zehra Zaidi, populary known as Shama Zaidi is a Hindi screenwriter, costume designer, art director, theatre personality, journalist, art critic, and documentary film maker. She is the wife of legendary filmmaker and theater personality -M. S. Sathyu. She has worked as Art critic for The Statesman, Patriot and Shankar's Weekly, New Delhi and has written numerous articles on film, theatre and television for Cinema Vision, Cinema in India etc for different journals and newspapers. She is best known as a costume designer and art director and has been associated with doyens of Indian realistic films like Shyam Benegal, Satyajit Ray and her husband, M. S. Sathyu.

She was born on September 25, 1938 in Delhi as the daughter of Col Bashir Hussain Zaidi and Begum Qudsia Zaidi. Her father was a famous administrator, businessman and politician and her mother was known as a writer, social worker and theatre personality. She along with Habib Tanvir established Hindustani theatre group in Delhi. Shama studied at Woodstock School, Mussoorie, and at Miranda House, New Delhi. She completed graduation in English from Delhi University. Later she took a Diploma from the Slade School of Art, London, United Kingdom, specialized in stage design. She also did one year course in stage design and costume design.

She got interested in costume design while her schooling at Woodstock. It was during this time when she started observing costumes and art design for theatre works. She was also deeply influenced by her mother who has been a noted theatre artist. During her college days at Miranda House, she started doing production design for plays. After the diploma course in London, she returned in 1961. As an art director and costume designer, she has been a part of most of Shyam Benegal’s Hindi productions. Her most noted Hindi movies are Garam Hawa, Bhumika, Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda, The Making Of The Mahatma, Manthan, Aarohan, Mandi, Chakra, Mammo, Sardari Begum, Zubeidaa, Trikal, Shatranj Ke Khiladi and Umrao Jaan.

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Updated: March 05, 2014