Saira Banu

“As a producer, I have the luxury of coming and going according to my convenience. As a director I cannot do that. I gave up my acting career at its peak for the same reason.”

“I am as attached to my career as a producer as I was to my career as an actress.”

“I am grateful for every day that I get with the people I love.”

“No marriage is perfect. How can it be, when as human beings we are not perfect?”

“Looking after Saab, his life and home now comes naturally to me.”

“As colleagues, Shammi ji was my first co-actor and the hero of my debut film 'Junglee' in 1961. I met him for the first time at Kashmir's Shalimar Bagh where we were filming the song 'Kashmir ki kali hoon main.' I was an excited teenager, fresh out of London College, and had pursued films against my mother's wishes.”

“My husband deserves the top honours for the work he has done and the man that he is.”

“No one has ever seen Shammi ji frowning.”

“Ours has been as good and enduring a marriage as so many marriages that have survived the ups and downs for four decades.”

“Even the gods pardon someone who makes a mistake.”

“I never minded stories of the beautiful women associated with Dilip saab. I had placed my entire trust in him.”

“My mother Naseem Bano who was called the first 'Pari Chehra' or beauty queen of the film industry, had taken me to London after she saw me taking fancy to her ghaghra, lipstick and dance to the tunes of her film songs. For her, academics were more important than films.”

“When I stopped my work in films and took over the management of the house, sometime after marriage, my new avatar was replicated hilariously by Dilip Sahab a few times having me and my mother in splits.”

“It was never my ambition to watch myself in magnified close-ups on screen.”

“Never ever I went to any producer/director for films and I never accepted small role in any film following 'Junglee.'”

“I could have easily carved out a niche, but I realised that Saira Banu the actress can be replaced, but nobody can substitute my duty towards my family.”

“Every touch and hug that I got from my grandmom and mom was therapeutic.”

“As my grandmother Shamshad Begum was a noted classical singer, who had settled down in London, we used to receive several people from the music, film and literature fraternity at home. People like Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Mehboob Khan, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, K. Asif etc., used to visit us regularly.”

“If a woman's husband is India's Kohinoor, why won't his wife be a Sati Savitri.”

“The people in Chennai and Mumbai are equally cultured and well-informed.”