Born to the famous poet Kaifi Azmi and the veteran theatre actress Shaukat Azmi, Shabana knew very early that being an artist was in her genes. And when she saw Jaya Bhaduri deliver a mind-blasting performance in a diploma film called ‘Suman’, her desires to make it big in cinema further deepened. A product of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune, Shabana topped the graduating batch of 1973 with flying colours and stepped into the film industry to pursue her filmi dreams.