From his early fascination with filmmaking to redefining Indian cinema with iconic films like Ankur and Manthan, Benegal reshaped Indian cinema with realism, compassion, and a rare sensitivity to social change
It is indisputable that no filmmaker since Satyajit Ray has contributed more to Indian cinema than Shyam Benegal. As the pioneer of the Indian parallel cinema movement in the 1970s, Benegal made landmark films that captured the changing fabric of Indian society with realism, objectivity, and a striking absence of cynicism.
In many ways, Benegal was deeply connected to Karnataka. His family hailed from the Uttara Kannada district and spoke a West Coast dialect of Konkani. His father, Sridhar B. Benegal, belonged to the village of Benegal in Brahmavar taluk of present-day Udupi district. It was his father who gifted Shyam a hand-cranked camera when he was just 12 years old. Having made his first home movie at that age, filmmaking became Benegal’s lifelong passion.
His love for Bicycle Thieves
Chuttiyon Mein Mauj Masti, Benegal’s first amateur film, was inspired by his avid interest in comics. Made on 16mm film — a format without negatives — it could be edited immediately. Enlisting friends and family as actors, the story revolved around a family on a train journey that ultimately reverses course. “The making of the film was fun and replete with tricks and comedy,” Benegal confessed to Manjula Sen in an article published in Cinema in India (March 1993). Cinema has been in my life for as long as I can remember,” he reminisced.
According to his close associates, Benegal founded one of Hyderabad’s first film societies and was its enthusiastic and active member. Theatre was also another area which interested him. By Benegal’s own admission, he liked films such as Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Shoeshine, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin, and Sambhu Mitra’s Jagte Raho, which inspired him to make similar films. “These were the kind of films I wanted to make. I used to work on scripts, but there was on opportunity to make them into films in Hyderabad,” he confessed to Manjula Sen.
From Lintas to Ankur
“Benegal landed in Bombay after a friend promised to get a job in an advertising agency. He didn’t think twice and bought a one-way ticket to Bombay, with just five rupees in his pocket. The promised job never materialised. But he finally got an opening in Lintas, a prestigious advertising agency, as a copywriter. At Lintas, he worked his way up to scripting ad films, then supervising them and finally being allowed to make them himself. In between, he collaborated on the screenplay of famous Malayalam novel, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s Chemeen, to be made by Shyam’s cousin and filmmaker Guru Dutt. Guru Dutt’s films and success greatly encouraged Shyam Benegal and his family. The film was never made, but Shyam was then able to script another film, which became Ankur ten years later. In these ten years Shyam made more than 250 advertisement shorts and about 30 documentaries,” writes Shama Zaidi, whose foray into films began by writing screenplay for Benegal’s children film, Charandas Chor, in her piece on in The New Generation, 1960-1980, published by the Directorate of Film Festivals, New Delhi.
Also read: Shyam Benegal obit: Cartographer of Indian psyche whose frames mapped our stories
Girish, Ananth Nag and Shyam
Kannada actors Girish Karnad and Anant Nag were part of his earlier films: Ankur, Nishant, Manthan, Bhumika, Kondura, and Kalyug. Nag’s collaboration with Benegal earned him critical acclaim. Nag admitted many times that he was introduced to Benegal by theatre director Satyadev Dubey. It is also important to note that the Karnad-Benegal-Dubey trinity transformed not only cinema, but also theatre. Along with Dubey, Karnad would be integral to three Benegal’s films — Nishant, Manthan and Bhumika — which came to define that moment in parallel cinema.
Karnad scripted Benegal’s films
During the International Film Festival of India held in Bengaluru in 1992, Benegal told this writer that he first met Karnad in Bombay through his cousin, Krishna Basarura. Benegal had great admiration for Karnad’s scripts. He said, “Karnad is the best script writer.” After having discussion with him and Satyadev Dubey, he (Karnad) could sit and write over 40 pages at a stretch, without taking a break in between. Karnad’s strength lies in creating dramatic situations with a mathematical accuracy and the best script, according to Benegal, was Bhumika.
Shama Zaidi writes that “the most controversial aspect” of Shyam’s films is his depiction of women. The traditionalists feel his approach is too “un-Indian” and feminists feel he only shows women as “victims”. The truth is somewhere in between. No other Indian filmmaker has shown as much sympathy with the female characters as he has depicted. This, Shyam felt, was due to the influence of his father and his wife.
Also read: Shyam Benegal interview: ‘Why I made Sheikh Mujibur Rahman biopic in Bengali’
Like Karnad, for many filmmakers of the 1970s and 1980s Benegal, was their guru in filmmaking. Renowned film critic Derek Malcolm, in his foreword to Sangeeta Datta’s Shyam Benegal, published by Roli Books in 2003, observes that “his first few films provided a huge market for other young directors of what was once hopefully called the Indian parallel cinema. And the fact that he made his films in Hindi”. He considers Ankur, Nishat, Manthan and Bhumika as Benegal’s ‘lightning bolts’.
The impressive oeuvre
Ankur, the seedling planted in 1974, may not have grown into the giant banyan that most had foreseen, says film critic Maithili Rao. But Benegal’s oeuvre is impressive for its consistent quality and the surprising departures just when the filmmakers seemed to have settled into a comfortable mould. According to her, “Benegal’s people come alive not only because he gives them a local habitation and name. It is the intuitive, unerring casting eye that he has almost single-handedly discovered and created repertory of some of the best actors we have. It is a glittering gallery of actors — Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and late Smitha Patil — who went on to become icons of alternative cinema. Manthan created history of sorts for being the first cooperatively produced film with thousands of producers from a milk cooperative. Benegal breathed dramatic life into what would otherwise be soporific films Division Documentary about the formation of a milk cooperative. The sexual frisson between a gutsy, independent Smitha Patil and the city scientist Girish Karnad lingers to tease you with its unexplored possibilities.”
His Swan Song
Filmmakers used to share their concerns with Benegal, when he was the Director of the National Film Development Corporation and the president of the society, which runs the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. Mujib: The Making of Nation, a 2023 biopic of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh, was the last film made by Benegal. Bangladesh Film Development Corporation and National Film Development Corporation of India jointly produced this film. Ironically, after the resignation of the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, following the students-people-led uprising, a large statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father, was toppled on August 5, 2024, a year after the film was made.
After the news of Benegal’s demise, condolences poured in from Kannada filmmakers, who consider Benegal their demigod. Kesari Haravoo, national award-winning filmmaker, recalled his conversation with Benegal in 1998. “Benegal came to Bangalore to attend a film workshop. It was my responsibility to take care of him during his visit and accompany him to the venue. He had watched my Bhoomi Geetha, which bagged a national award. He asked my opinion about a film released at that point in time. My reaction was a bit critical. He smiled at me and said, ‘A film has to entertain, besides what it wanted to communicate. But if they simply meant to entertain, they aren’t films either.’ I still remember our brief conversation and acknowledge what he said and followed in all his films,” says Haravoo, saluting the master storyteller for his cinema and for pushing boundaries.
