He Had a Smile for Everyone

HE DID NOT GET UP from his chair even once during the three hours we were with him. Every­one, his admirers, his friends and those who owed their film careers to him, came up, one by one, to pay their respects to the great man and have their pictures taken with him as he sat.

Last month, on Saturday December 14, I had flown from Delhi to Mumbai to celebrate Shyam Benegal’s ninetieth birthday. He looked frail—who wouldn’t at that age—but he was alert and had a smile for everyone at the party. It did not cross my mind that this might be the last time I would see him. Nine days later he died, leaving hordes of his friends devastated but grateful that our paths had crossed.

These days, in my twilight years, travelling even from Delhi to Mumbai requires effort, the use of a wheelchair. Going through airport security itself can be daunting. They ask you to take off your belt and shoes, and unpack the computer. This can tire out someone my age. My knee replacements set off alarms. The airport staff can be understanding, often very considerate, but still, it is a hassle.

But not flying to Mumbai for the Shyam’s birthday celebra­tions was not an option. We have been friends for 60 years. He was two years older than me. I paid Indigo an extortionist `3,400 extra just for seats both ways that had more leg room.

The celebrations were poolside at Bombay Gymkhana. Celebrating in a posh five-star hotel would not have been Shyam’s style. His friends from his younger advertising days—those who are still around—turned up in great numbers though some of his closest friends were missed, victims of mortality, Gersonda Cunha, Charles Correa, Alyque Padamsee and Behram Contractor, among others.

At the event I was happy to see actors whose careers were nurtured by Shyam. Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Kulbhushan Kharbanda were there as were Waheeda Rehman and Vidya Balan though they had not done films with Shyam. I felt the absence of Smita Patil as I am sure others did. She was one of Shyam’s favourite actors. She died in 1986 at the young age of 31 due to a botched childbirth.

WHEN WE FIRST MET, he had not yet ventured into making feature films. His bread and butter came from copy writing in an advertising agency and producing commer­cials promoting soap and cooking oil. He was an employee of Lintas that had the Hindustan Unilever account under its belt.

These short films were screened in cinema halls before the main attraction. Television was yet to arrive in the country. It was a time when some of the best and brightest worked in advertising. It paid well, and was almost glamourous. Shyam rose to become the agency’s creative head.

When we first met, I was then a struggling barrister at the Bombay High Court who paid his rent through weekend freelance writing, mostly on films and theatre. Our haunt was Samovar, now gone, an outdoor restaurant at Jehangir Art Gallery, where we gathered for lunch. It was run by Usha Khanna, a cousin of actor Balraj Sahni, who fed us wholesome food at a price that suited our meagre budgets.

Shyam grew up in Hyderabad and made his first film at the age of 12 with a camera given to him as a gift by his photographer father. He arrived in Bombay, now Mumbai, in 1958, at the age of 24, after graduating from Osmania University.

He already knew what he wanted to do, make films. He stayed at first with his famous cousin GuruDutt, real name Vasanth Kumar Padukone, and later with the filmmaker’s mother. Dutt offered to take the young man as his assistant director but Shyam declined.

“I really did not want to make the kind of films he made, even though he was someone I held in high regard and he inspired me,” Shyam once said.

For 13 years he took his script for Ankur from door to door to potential producers, but no one showed interest in a story about a poor Dalit couple whose lives get upturned when the zamindar’s son returns from college and eyes the Dalit’s wife.

When Ankur finally got made in 1974 it won awards internationally and was an instant success. It was nomi­nated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was Shabana Azmi’s first film. Shyam is re­garded as one of the pioneers of what came to be known as parallel cinema, films made on shoestring budgets on serious social issues. His contemporaries included Mrinal Sen (Bhuvan Shome), Girish Karnad (Samskara), MS Sathyu (Garam Hawa) and Mani Kaul (Uski Roti). Many of these films were funded by the Film Finance Corporation that was set up by the govern­ment to encourage good cinema.

Everyone has a favourite Shyam Benegal film. Mine is the under-rated, commercially unsuccessful Kalyug, a modern take on the Mahabharata. The script was by Girish Karnad. I am par­tial also to Nishant, his second film, made two years after Ankur. Here Shyam again tackles feudalism, the power of the rural elite and their sexual exploitation of women.

I happened to be living in New York when Nishant was released. I cajoled a 16mm print from the film’s American dis­tributor, borrowed a projector from someone who had one and screened it in our living room in Manhattan for our friends. This was before videos made life easier for everyone. Glasses were refilled when the reels were changed and there was kheema and rice for everyone after the screening.

Shyam has continued making films for over 50 years. His films are not blockbusters but most of them return the invest­ments and then some. Bhumika was a biopic based on the life of a Marathi actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar, who led a flamboy­ant and unconventional life and went through a bad marriage. In my book, Smita Patil gave her best performance in this film.

Mandi was a comedy on prostitution and politics. Zubeidaa’s script was by the well-known journalist, Khalid Mohamed. He based it on the life of his mother who had abandoned him as a child to live in a palace with a maharaja. For the film, Shyam took the services of a major star, Karisma Kapoor. He also splurged on the soundtrack, with music provided by AR Rahman. This time Shyam blurred the line between commercial and parallel cinema.

Shyam’s most interesting film was perhaps Manthan. It was inspired by the milk cooperative movement in Anand, Gujarat under the leadership of Verghese Kurien. The budget was crowd funded. Half a million dairy farmers contributed two rupees each and became the film’s producers. On the film’s release, truckloads of them turned up to see their film, making it an instant box office success!

In his later years, in 1988, he made a successful television adaptation of Nehru’s book, Discovery of India, titled aptly Bharat Ek Khoj. It had an incredible 53 episodes. His last film was on Bangladesh’s Mujibur Rahman, The Making of a Nation.

He has received numerous accolades, including national film awards, the Padma Bhushan as well as India’s highest award in the field of cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. I used to see much more of Shyam and his wife Nira when he was nomi­nated to the Rajya Sabha (2006-2012) and had government accommodation in Delhi.

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