There are old film posters......some of them made over four decades ago. But there is no hint of decay in them, no yellowing of the edges, as if time has conspired to preserve the freshness of the canvas just as the films themselves have transcended the barriers of time. A short walk past the poster-adorned walls of Sahyadri Films in south Mumbai’s tony Tardeo area and we are ushered into a wood-pannelled room. The first impression is that the room has lots of books. Many, many books. Buried in some of them and deep in thought, is the man we have come to meet braving Mumbai’s notorious evening traffic. He looks up, his face fills up with a warm smile and he immediately puts us at ease. A quick handshake later he offers us tea and then asks us to ‘shoot the questions.’ Shyam Benegal is a legend, a genius behind the camera. But he has just shown us that he is also a very nice man to know. From the time he made his first film Ankur in 1973, Benegal has defied the odds. Most of his films, variously called a part of ‘new cinema’, ‘alternate cinema’ or the rather irritating ‘middle cinema’ (“stupid name”, he says) succeeded at the box office when many of his contemporaries failed to crack the commerce code. Yet when it came to National Awards—the final word of praise for serious cinema—no one matched up to his 11 National Awards spanning four decades. When funds for new cinema dried up in the mid-70s, Benegal outfoxed doomsday sayers by getting five lakh dairy farmers of Gujarat to ‘produce’ his award-winning film Manthan (each of them contributed `2 and then, after the film was released, turned up at cinema halls in truckloads, making the film a runaway hit). When in the mid-80s, cinemas, facing the heat from television channels, stopped showing serious cinema, Benegal scripted and directed three stunning documentaries for Indian television, sponsored by various arms of the government. And just when critics figured he had grown too old to adapt to the times at 66 years, came his path breaking films Zubeida (2000) and then Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008), where the lines between ‘alternate’ and ‘mainstream’ cinema blurred forever. Benegal brushes such praise, however, with a wave of his hands. Flashing an almost embarrassed smile he is quick to either call it ‘luck’ or ‘good fortune’ or even pass the praise on to others. “National Awards are not always for the most successful or popular film. It’s more about films with a message, films that take up a social cause or talk about a national issue,” he says when asked about his ‘stranglehold’ over the award. Similarly he heaps praise on his mentor, Satyajit Ray, for not just opening his eyes to how good cinema could be made, but also for ensuring he got the Homi Bhaba Scholarship in the 1960s to go abroad and study film-making—the singular event that finally made a young Benegal determined to move from advertising to film-making as a full-time job. As we realise over our hour-long conversation over chai, photo shoots and anecdote sharing—Benegal is almost reluctant to accept the ‘legend’ tag or that of a genius. But those who have watched his handling of a young Shabana Azmi in Ankur, or how he brought the best out of an untrained, untried Smita Patil in Bhumika, would swear by his genius. During a scene in Bhumika (1977), the main protagonist (Usha/Urvashi) looks into the mirror, staring at herself. The audience watching her in awe, are privileged to witness the birth of a star—Smita Patil. It is possibly also the moment when many of those people truly comprehended the genius that is Benegal, as he effortlessly moves from his usual ruralscape to an urban story of a woman’s quest for identity and fulfillment. Loosely based on the life of Marathi stage actress Hansa Wadkar, Benegal’s Bhumika revolves around Patil’s character. With Usha, Benegal creates a complex personality, one that craves normality and convention, yet defies every notion of both. Patil gives the performance of her lifetime as Usha and Urvashi, and it is a privilege to watch her grow from a young woman to a screen star and finally to an embittered middle-aged mother. Bhumika of course was a special film which marked a departure in Benegal’s usual story-telling style and is considered to be one of his best. However, it is all but impossible to select ‘the best’ out of a body of work which spans across 50 years (he made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga, in 1962). Benegal has woven many tales, and all of them differently. Examining his films, a leitmotif does emerge—all of them bring India’s margins to the mainstream. He has always portrayed sexual and societal inequalities through his characters—either through his strong-willed women fighting gender politics; exploited unorganised labour sectors; struggles of ‘lower castes’ and tenant farmers. Before the Rizvis, Kashyaps, Banerjees and Dhulias burst across the multiplexes of India, the country’s voiceless found a hero in Benegal. No one championed their cause like him. Other members of new wave cinema (Benegal’s contemporaries) did focus on similar themes, but they portrayed a reality so ravaged that its humanity was often lost in all the bleakness. That was never the case with Benegal. From the time he made his debut, he tackled the terrible while entertaining. Now at 78, he is far from being “done”. “I am busy with a television mini-series on the Constitution. The project is like a personal challenge; a 10-part series, 10 hours long. It is proving to be a momentous task and will take an year to finish; but we are researching, talking to people and so far have managed three parts. It is a work in progress,” he informs in his characteristic deep voice. Considered as one of the founders of India’s new wave cinema, Benegal began his career in the 1970s. From then on and to this day, he has directed and scripted films which have helped shape India’s reputation on a global platform. What is refreshing about him is his creative fire, which is far from being doused.
PLAYING HOOKEY
Benegal was born in Trimulghery, a small garrison town near Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh. He was born on December 14, 1934, in a Konkani-speaking family. He completed his graduation and postgraduation in economics from Osmania University’s Nizam College. “My father was a still photographer and ran a studio. He was a painter, an artist, a draughtsman and a keen amateur filmmaker. When I say amateur, I mean he made home movies on a 16-mm movie camera. It was a Paillard Bolex, a German camera. Whatever he shot, he would then edit and put together as family entertainment,” he says. And his Gandhian father was pretty strict about the “kind” of cinema he would let his sons watch. “He would see films made by New Theatre and Prabhat Film Company. He would take us (his elder brother and him) to see one film every month. What he didn’t know was that I was seeing other films too. He was Gandhian in a way. He didn’t want us to see too many films which depicted violence—even if in a patriotic way. But I was playing hookey and going to the theatres every Thursday,” says Benegal with a chuckle. “When India gained its independence I was 12-and-a-half-years-old. I don’t remember much about those days, but remember visiting the cinemas often. Our town’s standalone cinema would show three films in a week—an English, a Hindi and a regional language film. I grew up watching all sorts of cinema.” His first cinema happened at the tender age of six and from the first scene itself, he was ‘hooked’. “The magic never left me. From then on I decided that I would be a filmmaker. I was not interested in the star system or in actors, but in the process of filmmaking. So I read up as much as I could,” reminisces the director. “My eldest brother, who still lives in Kolkata, was studying art there. He was keen on films and subscribed to Penguin Film Review. It had serious articles on editing and directors. After he read them, he packed and sent them to me. I had a growing collection of books and magazines on cinema which was a rare possession for a young fellow.” Parallely, Benegal was also “trying to find ways of expressing himself which were not going to be simply a clone of what was being made in the mainstream industry”. By that time Benegal was too entrenched in the movies made by neo-realists such as De Sica and Kurosawa to overtly indulge in ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. Books could teach him tonnes, but not everything—they did not tell him what films did he wish to make. To figure that out Benegal took time off, slowed things down a bit. “I hoped to direct a film one day. But I didn’t understand exactly what sort of film would I direct. I started to write scripts and began a film club at college.” What gave him direction was, surprisingly, swimming. Both the Benegal boys were a sports-loving lot. The filmmaker was both a pugilist and a swimmer. “I used to represent Hyderabad in the state-level swimming championships. In 1956, I went to Kolkata for a championship. In Kolkata my uncle ran a commercial art studio. He was a well-connected man as his firm handled publicity for all English language films. Side-by-side, he handled the commercial publicity for Uday Shankar’s dance troupe. He knew of my fascination so he casually invited me to see a film by a new director.” The film, Pather Pachali, was by the ‘new director’ Satyajit Ray. “I saw Pather Pachali 12 times within a week. I was stunned. It gave me a sense of direction. It gave me hope that I could probably find my own, original way into filmmaking without having to tread the same path as anybody else. I would soon have my individual voice!” The process to become one of India’s best had begun.
LEARNING AT LINTAS AND ASP
After finishing his higher studies, Benegal found himself at crossroads again. What could he do for a living? “I did the obvious—travelled to Bombay looking for a job. Since I believed that I had some capability as a copy writer Bombay was the place to be. There, I met Guru Dutt. He was a cousin. Guru Dutt asked me to assist him in a film but not as a first assistant. I was to ‘just hang around’. I was not willing to do that. And I thought that if I ‘hung around’ too much, I could carry an influential director’s traits, habits and aesthetics into my filmmaking, which I didn’t want,” he admits. So, in August 16, 1958, he began a ‘proper job’ as a copy editor at Lintas Media Group. “It was a useful job as it would pay a decent sum of `175 per month. I didn’t mind it at all as I received an opportunity to travel–particularly to the Northeast—after our agency found that several Lintas advertisements were not being shown in NE cinemas. So, I was packed off with three trunks full of ad-films to Assam. I placed them in cinemas across Assam—Dibrugarh and Margarita—and then to other states such as Nagaland and Manipur which were strife-torn at that time. It was a great learning experience.” And the time was right to be in the advertising sector. “We were the second-generation of advertising professionals after pioneers such as Durga Khote (the yesteryear iconic actress who started her own advertising firm back in the 1950s). Within six months of joining Lintas, I ended up writing scripts, directing, editing and recording films—doing just about everything. That is how I learnt to make films!” After his learning curve plateaued at Lintas Benegal quit to join ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion; an advertising firm). He began heading its film and radio departments and gradually rose through the ranks to manage the firm’s creative department. It is a period he recollects with fondness. It was his toughest and most rewarding period. “I was also working on a film script based on a story I had written for my college magazine. The story caught my fancy, so I decided to make a script out of it. Eventually it became my first film, Ankur,” he says. Initially few wished to finance Ankur till Blaze advertising Services stepped in. “They were the largest distributors of ad films in the country. At one time they had around 2,000 cinemas captive across India—a near monopoly, except for the south of India. They offered to produce Ankur and I agreed.” Meanwhile, Benegal had applied for the Homi Bhaba Fellowship. Rather, Satyajit Ray had recommended his name without letting the ‘student’ know. “Because Ray suggested it, I guess no one could possibly say no,” remembers Benegal. “I had met him on the sets of Nayak and he had seen my work which consisted of three documentaries. Ray had seen Child On The Streets and liked it. I had the fortune of sitting with him and chatting over a length of time, every time we met.” Soon, Ray became a ‘referee’ to Benegal’s career. Because Ray had recommended it, Benegal made Blaze wait for a year before they could start with the film as he went off to study filmmaking. A year later, Ankur happened. And there was no looking back thereafter.
THE NEW WAVE
Benegal considers himself lucky that most of the actors he introduced to Hindi cinema had come with excellent training. “None were newbies. Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) came from the NSD had worked with Girish Karnad in Tughlaq. None of these actors were picked from the streets. Om (Puri) and Amrish (Puri) had theatre backgrounds. Shabana (Azmi) of course was from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Only Smita (Patil) had absolutely no background in acting, but she had a spontaneity that was extraordinary. So she made up for not being a trained artist. It was never difficult to direct them. They were already honed.” Benegal’s later films Nishant, Manthan, Bhumika and Junoon added strength to the New Wave Cinema movement that began in the 1970s. Benegal had the distinction of being the only filmmaker for whom the poor became producers. “Manthan and several other films of mine had cooperative funding,” he admits.
TELEVISION WINS
Late 1970s and early 1980s saw the decline of the new cinema as television became national for the first time. In the early 1970s India had no entertainment but films and television was restricted to Bombay and Delhi. By the beginning of 1980s and post Asian Games, the country had terrestrial means to broadcast television, which meant that television began to take away a lot of the cinema revenue, which were growing by 6 to 7 per cent annually till then. Post-television era, revenues plummeted and some films started to disappear from the citizen’s entertainment dossier. “The first types to disappear off the stream were the ones that were off mainstream. You see, if you managed to fill the theatre even 80 per cent (in a hall of 1,000) you managed to break even. You had to be 90 per cent or more full to get even a little trickle as a producer. Also this was the time that Amitabh Bachchan was ruling the roost. He led the era of blockbusters and multi-star casts. So 60 per cent of the industry depended on stars,” he explains. During that period, when Indian new wave cinema witnessed a collapse, Benegal moved his attention to the upcoming mass media medium, the television. He produced a teleserial Bharat Ek Khoj based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s book Discovery of India for Doordarshan. “It was not an easy period. Because of the subjects I chose which were not in popular demand. The industry economies meant that if your film did not meet popular demand, you didn’t stand a chance. Thankfully, I didn’t have to compromise. But yes I briefly gave up filmmaking and went into television with Katha Sagar, Bharat Ek Khoj and Yatra to keep myself afloat. Bharat Ek Khoj changed everything for me, with its 53 hours of filming. It was made to last.” The early 1990s he returned to the Big Screen thanks to funding that he received from The National Film Development Corporation of India which produced Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda while the Ministry of Health funded Saamar and the Ministry of Child and Family Welfare chipped in for Hari Bhari, about a woman’s right to reproduction.
MULTIPLEX DREAMS
Today Benegal has a finger on the multiplex audience’s pulse. Compared to a lot of non-mainstream directors, he seems more patient with the (often) ridiculously formulaic Hindi mainstream cinema. While addressing its concerns in an April symposium, Benegal pointed out, “It (Hindi mainstream film industry) is an expensive and serious business. Very expensive. And films flop. Despite or, perhaps, because of this, the Indian film industry ticks. Flop is a relative term. Very few films are known to fail altogether. The only thing that might happen to a film is that it may recover its cost over a longer period of time. It is but natural that distributors who market films have defined them as those meant (a) for the masses, (b) for the classes, (c) art films that will attract no audience. The films that are likely to be the biggest successes are the ones made for the ‘masses’. They could be defined as films that are utterly naive in their story content, with non-existent character development and two dimensional emotional and intellectual attitudes.” Benegal is also kinder. Which is why probably his work has managed to find the balance between mainstream Bollywood and the so-called art or parallel cinema. Surprising his fans he entered Bollywood with Zubeida, Welcome to Sajjanpur and the most-recent, Well Done Abba. “You have to stay young, to feel the pulse of the younger generation. When I did these recent films, I wasn’t really moving to the mainstream or doing commercial films. Those lines were blurred long ago. Both genres now borrow liberally from each other. What would you call Omkara or Gangs of Wasseypur? I stuck to my core but also adapted to the changing times,” he says. “That is something you have to do. Unless you adapt to changing times, you will be dated. Today’s newspaper is hot. Yesterdays news is dead. I do not want to be yesterday’s news,” he laughs. The energy, the enthusiasm this man exudes at 78 is infectious, almost unreal. At 19, he was a swimming champion, representing his state Hyderabad in the 800 and 1,500-metres at the national championships. It was a swimming championship that brought him to Kolkata in 1956—fate some would call it—and introduced him to Ray’s Pather Panchali, a film that he admits changed his life. But it his training in long-distance swimming (if you think 1,500 metres is a walk in the park, try doing 30 laps in an Olympic-sized swimming pool) that has stood him in good stead at 78. “Swimming long distance teaches you never to give up. It teaches you endurance, it teaches you to think on the move, innovate and survive,” he says. That’s exactly what Benegal has done through his career. And that is why he has withstood the test of time and emerged as a legend. A true legend in the annals of the Indian film industry.