The Shyam Benegal I Knew

His
cinema
of
compassion
inspired
me,
gave
me
tools
to
develop
empathy
for
others.
But
it
also
made
me
understand
that
serious,
socially
committed
cinema
with
deeply
engaging
narratives
and
great
performances
is
an
art
form
to
admire,
appreciate
and
explore.

Aseem
Chhabra
remembers
Shyam
Benegal,
who
passed
into
the
ages
on
Monday
evening.

“You
must
give
Shyam
a
hug,”
Aroon
Shivdasani,
my
then
boss
at
the
New
York
Indian
Film
Festival,
said
to
me.

It
was
late
August
2007
and
I
was
heading
on
my
annual
pilgrimage
to
the
Rocky
Mountains
for
the
Telluride
Film
Festival.
That
year,
Benegal
was
supposed
to
receive
a
special
medal
for
his
contribution
to
cinema.

The
first
morning
of
the
festival
I
went
to
see
Lee
Chang-dong’s

Secret
Sunshine
at
the
Sheridan
Opera
House.
Earlier
that
summer,
the
film
had
received
the
Best
Actress
award
at
the
Cannes
Film
Festival
and
there
was
a
lot
of
buzz
for
it.

I
saw
Benegal
enter
the
theatre.

“Good
morning
sir,”
I
said
to
him.

“I
work
with
Aroon
Shivdasani
and
she
asked
me
to
give
you
a
big
hug.”

He
smiled
and
asked
about
Shivdasani.
We
ended
up
sitting
together
on
the
main
floor
of
the
theatre.

After
the
screening,
I
stepped
out
with
to
him
to
a
coffee
shop
on
the
Main
Street
when
we
ran
into
an
Indian
actress.
She
said
hello
to
Benegal.
After
she
left
he
told
me
that
was
Tannishtha
Chatterjee.
He
had
cast
her
in
his
film

Netaji
Subhas
Chandra
Bose:
The
Forgotten
Hero
but
she
left
the
project
for
a
German-Indian
film

Shadows
of
Time.

During
that
Labour
Day
weekend,
I
saw
Benegal
a
few
times
and
even
ran
into
his
wife
Nira
as
we
stood
in
the
line
to
watch

Persepolis.

When
I
told
her
my
name,
she
recognised
me
from
my

Mumbai
Mirror
columns.

“Let
me
shake
your
hand,”
Niraji
said.

“You
are
Shyam
Babu’s
wife
and
you
want
to
shake
hand
with
me,”
I
responded
with
a
smile,
and
thinking
that
perhaps
I
had
finally
made
it.

Also
that
weekend,
as
I
watched

Ankur,
as
part
of
the
tribute
to
Benegal,
I
thought
about
my
life
in
the
last
four
decades
and
how
I
had
fallen
in
love
with
films
discovering
his
works.

I
was
in
school
when
I
discovered
Benegal’s
films.

In
1974,
a
school
friend
told
me
about
a
film
that
was
playing
in
theatres
in
Bombay.

The
film
was

Ankur,
starring
a
young
Shabana
Azmi,
who
knew
my
friend’s
cousin.
The
director
of
the
film
was
a
man
named
Shyam
Benegal.

Decades
before
social
media
and
the
Internet,
we
would
hear
about
films
from
word-of-mouth,
articles
in
publications
or
advertisements
on
All
India
Radio.
Even
then,
there
was
little
written
about

Ankur
and
I
had
not
heard
of
Shabana
Azmi
or
Shyam
Benegal.

Eventually,

Ankur
did
play
in
a
theatre
in
Delhi.

In
those
days,
Hindi
films
would
often
open
first
in
Bombay
and
then
slowly
roll
out
in
the
rest
of
the
country.
I
watched

Ankur
at
the
Regal
Cinema,
a
prime
single
screen
theatre
located
in
Connaught
Place.

Ankur
blew
my
mind.

The
teenager
in
me
had
never
imagined
a
world
in
pre-independence
rural
Telangana,
where
class
and
caste
politics
played
out
in
the
story
of
lust,
a
liaison
between
a
young
landlord
(Anant
Nag)
and
the
wife
(Azmi)
of
a
farm-hire
(a
superb
Sadhu
Meher)
and
the
consequences
—
the
beating
of
the
deaf-mute
farm-hire.

I
had
never
seen
an
actor
like
Azmi
—
beautiful,
seductive,
vulnerable
and
gosh,
her
outburst
at
the
end.

It
shocked
me
out
on
my
privileged
comfort
zone.
This
was
the

ras
of
a
Shyam
Benegal
film.

There
was
a
specific
authenticity
in
world
of
Benegal
and
his
co-writer
Satyadev
Dubey
created
that
impressed
me
—
the
colours
of
Azmi’s
saris,
the
way
Govind
Nihalani’s
camera
captures
her
tying
her
hair
as
she
wakes
up
from
the
landlord’s
bed,
the
dialogues
spoken
in
Dakhni
Urdu,
the
background
sounds
and
the
random
characters
populating
the
village.

One
could
smell,
feel
the
texture
of
this
world,
believable,
with
flawed
characters
who
were
no
heroes.

A
year
later,
Benegal
was
back
with
an
even
more
powerful
film,

Nishant,
a
bleak
portrayal
of
a
repressive
feudal
system
which
leaves
no
room
for
hope
for
humanity.

Again
set
in
the
mid-1940s,

Nishant
was
a
tale
of
a
village
in
Telangana
terrorised
by
four
landlord
brothers,
the
kidnapping
of
a
school-teacher’s
wife
and
his
desperation
since
no
government
agency
was
willing
to
help
him,
by
challenging
the
landlord
brothers.

Based
on
a
script
by
Dubey
and
Vijay
Tendulkar,

Nishant
was
populated
with
a
large
ensemble
cast
of
actors,
many
from
the
Film
and
Television
Institute
of
India
and
the
National
School
of
Drama.

This
would
become
his
repertory
company
of
parallel
cinema
actors.

These
actors
would
appear
again
and
again
in
his
films
and
also
of
other
film-makers
working
within
the
same
framework
of
socially
relevant
new-wave
films.

In
addition
to
Azmi
and
Nag,

Nishant‘s
cast
also
included
Girish
Karnad
(his
first
Hindi
film
role),
Amrish
Puri,
Mohan
Agashe,
Kulbhushan
Kharbanda
and
two
actors
Naseeruddin
Shah
and
Smita
Patil,
who
would
change
my
life,
how
I
would
view
cinema
and
my
perception
of
what
talented
performers
were
capable
of
doing
in
front
of
the
camera.

Ankur
and

Nishant
were
funded
by
Blaze
Film
Enterprises,
India’s
biggest
advertising
film
company
at
that
time.

But
for
his
third
film
in
three
years,

Manthan,
also
referred
to
as
part
of
his
trilogy,
Benegal
found
a
unique
way
to
raise
finances.

For
a
story
inspired
by
Verghese
Kurien,
the
pioneer
of
the
milk
cooperative
movement
in
India,
Benegal
crowdfunded
the
film.

Half
a
million
farmers
donated
Rs
2
each
to
finance
a
film.

Manthan
opens
with
the
title
card
that
reads
‘500,000
FARMERS
OF
GUJARAT
present’.

Manthan
was
a
dramatic
story
written
by
Kurien
and
Benegal,
and
based
on
Tendulkar’s
screenplay.

A
well-meaning
group
of
people,
including
a
veterinary
doctor
and
his
team,
arrive
in
a
village
to
develop
a
milk
cooperative
society.
But
their
plans
are
hampered
with
caste
politics
and
other
rural
complexities
that
city
dwellers
would
never
fully
understand.

The
film
was
book
ended
with
the
lovely
song

Mero
Gaam
Katha
Parey
sung
by
Preeti
Sagar
and
composed
by
Vanraj
Bhatia.

Manthan
also
won
the
National
Film
Awards
for
Best
Hindi
film
and
for
Tendulkar’s
screenplay.
All
National
Film
Award
winners
would
be
assured
at
least
one
screening
at
Delhi’s
Vigyan
Bhavan
and
that
is
where
I
saw
the
film.

I
still
remember
the
sense
of
exhilaration
when
I
went
to
Vigyan
Bhavan
for
what
was
becoming
an
annual
event
of
the
year,
a
new
Benegal
film
with
same
collection
of
actors
Karnad,
Nag,
Shah,
Patil,
Meher,
Kharbanda
among
others.

With
Benegal’s
cinema
the
viewer
was
assured
of
films,
laced
with
intense
performances,
rural
settings
far
removed
from
the
worlds
of
Amitabh
Bachchan
and
the
popular
Hindi
cinema
of
that
time.

His
films
had
a
strong
dose
of
caste
and
class
politics
that
would
make
me
sit
up.

All
my
political
and
social
education
in
the
1970s
came
from
Benegal’s
films.

This
was
until
Saeed
Akhtar
Mirza
also
began
to
explore
the
idea
of
class
warfare
in
films
such
as

Arvind
Desai
Ki
Ajeeb
Dastan
(1978)
and

Albert
Pinto
Ko
Gussa
Kyon
Ata
Hai
(1980).

For
his
fourth
feature
film,
in
same
number
of
years
(in
between
he
had
also
made
a
children’s
film
called

Charandas
Chor),
Benegal
changed
the
pace
and
the
mood
of
his
film-making.

Inspired
by
the
autobiography
of
the
Marathi
stage
and
film
actress
Hansa
Wadkar,
he
directed

Bhumika
and
cast
Patil
in
the
lead,
giving
her
the
best
role
of
her
short
career.

Once
again,
he
dipped
into
the
pool
of
his
regular
actors,
Shah,
Nag,
Puri,
Agashe,
Kharbanda.

To
the
mix,
Benegal
added
two
new
faces:
The
renowned
Marathi
actress
Sulabha
Deshpande
and
Amol
Palekar,
who
until
recently
was
playing
the
charming
boy-next-door
kind
of
roles
in
Basu
Chatterjee’s
films.

In

Bhumika,
Palekar
played
a
negative
role
of
Usha’s
(Hansa’s
name
is
changed
for
the
film)
husband.

One
Sunday
afternoon
a
friend
called
to
inform
me
about
a
small
private
screening
of

Bhumika
at
Delhi’s
Lady
Shri
Ram
College.
This
was
long
before
I
became
a
film
journalist
and
would
be
invited
to
press
screenings
and
film
festivals.
An
invitation
to
the
latest
Shyam
Benegal
film
was
the
best
gift
someone
would
give
me.

Bhumika
stunned
me.

By
now,
I
had
seen
enough
social
dramas
exploring
marital
challenges
but
mostly
within
the
popular
cinema
framework.

The
level
of
reality,
the
period
details
in

Bhumika
was
of
another
standard,
with
a
very
different
aesthetic
sensibility.

The
details
of
Usha’s
childhood
home,
the
costumes,
the
furniture
in
the
home
of
Vinayak
Kale
(Puri),
where
Usha
is
brought
after
she
walks
out
of
her
marriage
to
Keshav
Dalvi
(Palekar)
opened
up
another
world,
another
India
for
me.

Having
grown
up
in
Delhi,
it
was
a
world
I
knew
very
little
about
since
I
had
not
been
exposed
to
Marathi
cinema
or
theatre.

Since
it
covered
the
career
of
a
movie
actress,

Bhumika
was
the
first
Benegal
film
to
feature
a
number
of
songs,
all
set
to
Vanraj
Bhatia’s
music.
He
would
not
use
so
many
songs
in
another
film
until
2001
when
he
made
his
most
Bollywood
film

Zubeidaa
with
compositions
by
A
R
Rahman.
For
the
title
role
of

Zubeidaa,
Benegal
cast
the
leading
actress
of
the
Hindi
film
industry,
Karisma
Kapoor,
along
with
Rekha,
who
had
already
appeared
in
one
more
of
his
films,

Kalyug
(1981).

Bhumika
was
a
solid
star-making
vehicle
for
Smita
Patil,
much
like
what

Ankur
had
done
for
Azmi.
The
challenging
role
covered
Usha’s
life
from
childhood
to
a
middle-aged
woman.

Patil
was
only
22
when
the
film
was
released.

For

Bhumika,
Patil
won
the
first
of
her
two
National
Film
Awards
in
the
Best
Actress
category.

In
March
2023,
Patil’s
older
sister
Anita
told
me
during
a
panel
discussion
that
until

Bhumika,
Patil
had
been
a
reluctant
actress.
That
film
finally
convinced
her
to
pursue
acting
as
a
career.

After
what
is
considered
a
minor
film

Kondura
(1978),
also
shot
simultaneously
in
Telugu
as

Anugraham,
Benegal
was
back
in
1979
with
a
bang.

Junoon,
his
most
expensive
film
to
date
was
produced
by
Shashi
Kapoor’s
Film-Valas
production
house.

Kapoor
had
never
intended
to
become
a
film
star.

But
as
his
star
status
grew
in
the
late
1960s
and
1970s,
he
decided
to
give
back
to
the
industry
by
producing
quality
art-house
films.

To
pursue
this
goal,
Kapoor
produced
six
films.
But
baring

Junoon,
the
other
films
lost
money,
putting
Kapoor
and
his
family
in
a
dire
financial
situation.

That
Kapoor
chose
to
work
first
with
Benegal,
was
an
indication
of
how
well
the
director
had
established
his
credentials
as
the
leader
of
the
parallel
film
movement.

Junoon
was
based
on
a
novella
by
Ruskin
Bond,

Flight
of
Pigeons.
Bond’s
story
about
the
romance
between
a
young
Anglo-Indian
woman
and
an
older
married
Muslim
man,
in
the
midst
of
the
1857
Mutiny
was
set
in
Shahjahanpur,
UP.

Junoon
again
turned
out
to
be
a
project
where
Benegal
brought
together
his
group
of
actors
like
Azmi,
Shah
and
Kharbanda.
But
this
time,
it
was
a
larger
team
including
Shashi
and
Jennifer
Kapoor,
Nafisa
Ali,
Sushma
Seth,
Benjamin
Gilani,
Deepti
Naval,
Jalal
Agha,
Tom
Alter,
Pearl
Padamsee
and
novelist
Ismat
Chughtai,
in
her
only
film
role,
while
she
also
wrote
the
dialogues
of
the
film.

Junoon
holds
a
special
place
in
my
heart.

The
performances,
especially
some
key
scenes
between
Shashi
and
Jennifer,
were
among
the
best
I
had
seen
in
my
adult
life,
where
I
was
beginning
to
understand
the
idea
of
good
art
in
cinema.

In

Junoon,
they
argued
fiercely
over
the
young
Anglo-Indian
woman
Ruth
Labadoor
(Ali).

Shashi’s
Javed
Khan
wanted
to
marry
Ruth,
while
Jennifer’s
Mariam
(Ruth’s
mother)
stood
between
them,
placing
one
condition
after
another.
Meanwhile,
Javed’s
frustrated
first
wife
Firdaus
(a
terrific
Azmi)
helplessly
watched
the
drama
unfold
in
her
house.
Outside,
the
world
was
burning
as
Indian
soldiers
were
giving
up
their
lives
fighting
the
British.

Junoon
was
a
wonderful
marriage,
a
perfect
example
of
different
strands
of
Hindi
film
industry
coming
together,
with
a
director
committed
to
pursuing
cinema
as
an
art
form,
getting
the
backing
of
a
producer
who
had
the
vision
to
finance
projects
that
on
paper
appeared
risky.

Kapoor
and
Benegal
would
work
together
again
in

Kalyug
(1981),
a
modern-day
retelling
of
the
Mahabharat
where
instead
of
the
Pandavas
and
Kauravas,
we
had
two
related
business
families
in
Bombay
at
war
with
each
other.

Benegal
kept
busy
through
the
next
three
decades
and
more,
continuing
with
his
quest
to
bring
to
screen
stories
of
empowered
women
(Mandi,
1983
and

Hari-Bhari,
2000),
less
fortunate
citizens
of
India
(Susman,
1987
and

Samar,
1998).

He
also
transitioned
to
biopics
of
leaders
of
modern
India
(Mahatma
Gandhi,
Subhas
Chandra
Bose)
and
a
trilogy
based
on
the
life
of
film
critic
Khalid
Mohamed
(Mammo,
1994,

Sardari
Begum,
1996
and

Zubeidaa,
2001).

When
the
parallel
film
movement
started
to
slow
down
and
eventually
died
due
to
lack
of
financing
and
distribution
options,
Benegal
turned
to
television
and
undertook
a
massive
project

Bharat
Ek
Khoj
(1988-1989),
the
retelling
of
the
history
of
India
based
on
Jawaharlal
Nehru’s

Discovery
of
India.

But
Benegal
never
gave
up
or
retired
despite
his
ill
health.

His
last
film
was

Mujib
(2023),
a
biopic
based
on
the
life
of
the
late
Bangladesh
leader
Sheikh
Mujibur
Rahman.

The
film
was
co-produced
by
the
National
Film
Development
Corporation
of
India
and
the
Bangladesh
Film
Development
Corporation.

I
was
fortunate
to
moderate
a
post-screening
discussion
after
the
film’s
market
screening
at
the
Toronto
International
Film
Festival.
Due
to
his
health,
Benegal
was
not
able
to
travel
to
Toronto.
Instead
his
screenplay
writer
Atul
Tiwari
and
the
lead
actor,
Arifin
Shuvoo,
were
present
at
the
screening.

My
memories
also
take
me
back
to
the
number
of
times
I
met
Benegal
after
2007,
in
Mumbai,
Goa
and
also
New
York
City
where
he
was
a
guest
at
our
festival
a
couple
of
times.

In
the
1970s
and
1980s,
he
was
the
angry
young
man
of
India’s
parallel
cinema.
But
by
the
time
I
got
to
know
him,
there
was
a
warm
grandfatherly
touch
to
him.

He
was
always
smiling,
laughing
and
would
often
ask
me
about
New
York
and
the
festival
I
programmed.

When
I
look
back
at
my
life,
why
I
chose
to
become
a
film
writer,
Benegal’s
influence
is
immense.
His
cinema
of
compassion
inspired
me,
gave
me
tools
to
develop
empathy
for
others.
But
it
also
made
me
understand
that
serious,
socially
committed
cinema
with
deeply
engaging
narratives
and
great
performances
is
an
art
form
to
admire,
appreciate
and
explore.