Shyam Benegal (1934-2024): The Gentleman Artist

It was 1997, at the International Film Festival of Kerala at Thiruvannathapuram. Shyam Babu as he was called, was sitting at a table with his old time associate Govind Nihalani, eating meen karimeen. There I was a newbie reporter looking somewhat lost. Shyam Babu called out and invited me to join the table, the conversation on cinema, and a growing group of movie lovers around him.

That was Shyam Benegal, always ready to embrace the new, ready to respond to any question, and ready to engage in any debate. All one had to do was to send him a Whatsapp message (and before that a text, and even before that make a phone call). Curiosity, engagement, and discussion, Benegal the person was defined by these qualities as much as the filmmaker. His remarkable oeuvre is testament to that.

Born into a middle class Hyderabad family, ushered into the ad world, he could have remained the stereotypical deracinated urbanite. Instead, he actively sought out the disenfrachised, the dispossessed, and the disinherited. Whether it was the lower caste woman exploited by the so-called modern landlord in his first film, Ankur (1974), or the tawaifs who were to be thrown out of the city in Mandi (1983), or the Muslim women of his trilogy, Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) and Zubeidaa (2001), his eyes and ears were trained to see the invisible and hear the voiceless.

And playing these men and women were a remarkable lot of actors. From Shabana Azmi, the bright young FTII-trained daughter of two Leftist artistes, to Smita Patil, the thoughtful young newsreader who came from a political family in Maharashtra, from the NSD and FTII trained Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri to a profusion of beautiful young women like Neena Gupta and Soni Razdan who were willing to share rooms with each other, be paid very little and do whatever roles possible for a chance to be in Shyam Benegal movie.

He understood the margins of society in a clear-eyed and dispassionate way. The trials of Hansa Wadkar, based on her memoir, formed the basis of one of his most memorable movies, Bhumika (1977), which saw a diabolical performance from Amol Palekar, was a character study in the pioneering women who entered the film industry in the early years. The repeated sexual assaults on Sushila in Nishant (1975), as a way of life in feudal Telangana, or the treatment of Dalits in a milk cooperatie in Manthan (1976), beautifully restored by the Film Heritage Federation of India. All these were films that gave a socialist India its talisman.

The last of the Nehruvians, he made the seminal Bharat Ek Khoj (1988), a 53-episode series based on Jawaharal Nehru’s Discovery of India. Telecast on Doordarshan in the days television had not dumbed down, it inspired many to understand India’s past. His documentary on Satyajit Ray in 1985 was a masterclass in filmmaking which is watched even today. His films were proof that money could be found for independent cinema, provided one had a story to tell.

Shyambabu always had a story to tell, and an audience to tell it to.

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