Shyam Benegal: Commitment Personified
“Benegal has put up a model of committed film-making in a thoroughly professional manner that could be eminently useful for both the mainstream, with its recklessly expensive habits, and art cinema, with its holier-than-thou attitude and amateurism.”
It is ironical that talking about Shyam Benegal is extremely easy as well as quite difficult at the same time.
Considering the repertoire of films that he has given us over a period of last 35 years or so, it is easy to slot him as the “art-house” director. However, look closer, and the diverse topics that he has addressed over the years, talking about secularism, pluralism, democracy, equality of opportunity, human rights, women’s rights, study of human psyche, superstitious myths embedded in our culture, satire, etc humbles us to the extent that it becomes impossible to gauge the vast repertoire that he possesses about understanding the human nature and the reflections of shifting nature of our social values.
Whereas Ankur and Nishant are about the oppression of women, Bhumika is about a woman’s dilemma of the need for security as well as insistence on freedom. Mandi is a satire at society which needs a prostitute and rejects her at the same time; Kondura is about the prevalent superstition and the embedded myths in our predominantly puritanical society. Kalyug is a present-day take on Mahabharata and the shift in our social values and Suraj Ka Saatwaan Ghoda is a nostalgic and individualistic take on the self-mocking reflection of our shifting social values with a non-linear narrative.
One of the major central ideological strands of Benegal’s works has been the documentary-style film-making, represented by films like Manthan (Milkmen), Susman (Handloom Weavers), Antarnaad (Fishermen), Samar (Dalits’ equal opportunities), Hari-Bhari (Women’s right of reproduction). A deep-rooted social and political activism underlies such abiding concern to change the world in a constructive way. They are highly purportive films with a Gandhian – Nehruvian model of self-help and micro-cosmic cooperation to bring about a change in the plight of the oppressed and/or overlooked, to make them self-supported and respectable.
History also intrigued Benegal, and he channelized the awareness among people through films like Junoon (a slice of realistic portrayal of history of 1857 Mutiny), Trikaal (the past, present & future interaction of Portuguese history), Bose: A Forgotten Hero (misunderstood and misinterpreted Netaji), Bharat Ek Khoj (arguably the best dramatised take on Discovery of India by Nehru) and The Making of Mahatma (the life and times of Gandhi before he became one).
Benegal also made a sort-of trilogy about the Muslim Women: Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeida, incidentally all the three written by Khalid Mohammed. They marked a virtual waking up to the mute existence of Muslim women, of which the Indian cinema has been by and large blissfully unaware despite the participation of so many actors, and the observation of the three respective protagonists of these movies takes in the entire community seen through the most intimate and most vulnerable section, the women. The three films are a study of the intra/inter-community equations in general, and their impact on the lives of the protagonists and the others related to them in particular. It was a tough call to walk the thin line of demarcation between being artistically persuasive, and being targeted for the insensitivity in portraying prospective volatility. However, probably what kept him in good stead was the fact that he had spent his formative years in Hyderabad, a city known to have better communally-balance demography, as well as the fact that he lived among six sisters, and all of them were strong-headed, dominant and non-submissive in their own way.
Each of his films brought him closer to people and realities. It was an exercise in self-education about diversity of life around us, and taking pride in achieving small things and celebrating them in a big way. His films have been pivoting around contemporary Indian experience of inherent problems and their solutions in the development process and social changes. He was highly influenced by Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak during his early days and his founding of Hyderabad Film Society during college and the subsequent association with Calcutta Film Society broadened his ideological persuasion and sensibilities.
New Cinema was a new way of looking at cinema, which started happening at different places during different times: in Bengal during early 50’s, in Kerala and Karnataka during early 60’s, and in Orissa and Hindi Cinema during the 70’s. Benegal was against the standardised images of the mainstream commercial cinema, as they represented nothing, and it was his quartet of new cinema that virtually started it all. Ankur, Nishant, Manthan and Bhumika will always be remembered for starting the wave in Hindi cinema. It was the process of new wave, and it broke away from tradition. Other likeminded directors followed, and though Benegal’s films always managed to find patronage due to various reasons, the others faltered as they were not able to lure the mainstream audiences to the theatres, who were used to the standardised images. Thus, for the most part, the new cinema functioned on the margins, and slowly this wave phased out due to lack of success by mid 80’s.
One of the major reasons why Benegal’s films managed to find audiences and make money was because he explored ingenuous ways for his film’s funding. He neither depended upon a money-bag to fund his films because he didn’t want to play into their hands and compromise on the ethics of the new cinema, nor did he ask for Government’s funding, unlike others, because he felt the Government money was the public money, which was never loaned with a view of refunding, as per the general perception of the public, and the cushion of that knowledge would make him take his art and commitment for granted, since he won’t have to strategize to bring the audiences to the theatres to break-even, therefore his work might get inferior.
Manthan was a classic example of co-operative funding in which almost five lakh villagers donated two rupees each for the film, and when it released, they all flocked to the theatres in droves to watch “their” film, thereby ensuring it was commercially a hit. Similarly, Susman was for the Handloom Cooperative, Antarnaad was for the fishermen and Yatra (TV series) was for the Indian Railways. It was much later that he ‘accepted’ funding from NFDC for Suraj Ka Satwaan Ghoda and Mammo. The Government of India also officially agreed to fund Samar through Ministry of Social Justice and Hari-Bhari through Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, realising the social relevance of the concept and the growing awareness among people towards the far reaching impact of films of Shyam Benegal.
Benegal also introduced the use of local dialects in his movies to give them the genuine flavour and feel, as it was instrumental in connecting with the roots and influence the local sentiments. Films with the specific rural set up would necessarily have the dialect of that region, like in Ankur, Nishant, Kondura etc. While Manthan was at the scripting stage, the dialogues were in proper Hindi, though the film was based predominantly in Gujarat. The film could not be made entirely in Gujarati, since it would alienate a lot of prospective non-Gujarati-speaking audience, and Hindi was somehow not giving that feel of originality. Sensing a prospective disconnect with the local flavour, Benegal and his team introduced a new dialect with Gujarati interspersed generously with Hindi. The end result was so believable that in certain sections of the media, Manthan was hailed as the first “Gujarati film” to have such a pan-India reach!
Benegal always maintained that he could not work with actors who were not knowledgeable about the craft of acting, and that was the sole reason why most of his actors were handpicked from stage, or from the institutes like FTII and NSD. Benegal has been perhaps the only filmmaker to have introduced such talented actors in his films like Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag, Amrish Puri, Mohan Agashe and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, among others. All of them continued working with him because he was their friend, family, their emotional support, their punching bag, financer, anything and everything but a ‘director’. It sure helped that all along, his wife Neera was a continuous source of support and comrade-in-arms in all his endeavours. Now that role-play is strengthened by his daughter Pia as well, who is a fashion designer and an emotional support, as well one of his critics.
There is an interesting trivia about his choice of actors. Immediately after having completed Ankur, Benegal was looking for an actor who could play the role of the young brother in his next venture, Nishant. Around the same time, Girish Karnad, the then director of FTII, was grappling with strike at FTII by the students of acting course. The strike was led by a fiery and charismatic student, who was not ready to budge from his stand or compromise at all. Considering the sort-of-stupid reason of the strike, Girish Karnad felt that the leader-boy must be a great actor to create such a nuisance out of nothing. When Benegal approached Karnad, both already friends by then, for a suggestion for the role, Karnad recommended the leader-boy for that role, not so much because he was convinced of his qualities, but more so because he wanted the trouble-maker out of his reach and have some peace of mind. He was, of course, auditioned and found to be perfect for the role and was immediately cast by Benegal. And that was the beginning of the career of one the greatest actors of Indian cinema we now know as Naseeruddin Shah. Incidentally, as all of us already know, Girish Karnad was also a part of Nishant, and had to come face to face with Naseer on the sets, so he didn’t have his absolute peace of mind after all…
The Government of India and the film fraternity has of course recognised Shyam Benegal’s contribution towards cinema, and the various awards and portfolios that he has held over the years is a testimony to that. He was teaching mass communication in FTII from 1966 to 1973, and subsequently twice became the Chairman of FTII, once from 1980 to 1983, and again from 1989 to 1992. He was a member of the National Integration Council from 1986 to 1989, and he was also the Director of NFDC for almost six years. He was conferred Padma Shree in 1976 and Padma Bhushan in 1991. He was also awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in the year 2007. He has won the National Award a record 17 times, out of which 7 times has been for Best Hindi Film.
All this achievement looks expected for a boy who conceived and made his first amateur film at the age of 13 with the help of a camera given by his still-photographer father. And it humbles us when we know that he has achieved so much even though he made his first feature film at the age of 39! At almost 75, the great man is still going strong, and has so much left in him to offer to us, we only pray he can give some more films to remember him with before he finally decides to hang his boots for a life of absolute retirement. But knowing him, it is unlikely he will ever call it quits.
Tags: Ankur, bhumika, Mammo, Mandi, Manthan, Nishant, Samar, Sardari Begum, shyam benegal, Trikal, Zubeida
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Good overview of a lifetime of work by a super director and sensitive citizen – Benegal!
Well even for a layman who knows nothing about Benegal or his works, this post would act as a ready reckoner- so I must say I’m impressed.Sometime ago even I was doing some research on Shyam babu myself and found out quite a few of the things mentioned here.Though even I was surprised that he made his debut as a feature film maker@ the mature age of 39, it looks like he was preparing for a long innings because he had honed his skills as a successful ad film maker.
Jha- It would have been great if you could have even added a line or two on his association with composer Vanraj Bhatia- it must be one of the longest standing associations between director and composer in Indian cinema.even after Hari-Bhari Shyam babu would have loved to continue working with him but for Vanraj’s health condition.
And its very ironical that after so many years of filmmaking it’s his recent release Welcome To Sajjanpur which is supposed to be his most successful movie at the box office.Another piece of trivia for those who are not aware is that Shyam Babu and Guru Dutt are close relatives.
Brilliant article Satyendra for the depth and the breadth. In a sense you have covered the whole spectrum – discipline, repertoire, sense of history, dialects, funding, philosophy, mentoring talent and so much more.
These broad spectrum can also be challenging since it can be superficial but you have handled it adroitly. Superb stuff
It was on DD of 90’s., I have seen his film long back ago.Now in the age of 100 dish channels, no one has time to broadcast his movies.what a ity to geat mastero who has used cinema as a tool for social awareness and upheavel.good work jha for this insightful lookup.
I am happy for my co-Hyderabadite – Shyam Babu. Drew his own parallels, won accolades, awed rivals, cut-sliced egos, made actors into performers, made Indian Cinema think, gave rural India a channel and what more every alternate guy in Indian Cinema is either influenced or is from the branch that he gave. His ‘Bharath Ek Khoj’ just blew me away. It really needed a sincere heart and the real feel of being an Indian!!
Great post Satyendra.
@ indraneel-da, sethu, yayaver & sridhar: thanks a lot guys for liking the post. its a humble experience to be talking abt a massive personality like shyam benegal. he has done loads of work for the society thru his films and documentaries, and we can just be in awe of such people.
@ ram: thanks sir for your appreciative words. wud talk to u tomorrow to take our initiative forward. its an honour to be associated with you.
good article.
sankshep mein saari baat kah di hai aap ne…
@ ajay: dhanyavaad. aapki website par likhit rachnaaon kaa main kaafi kaayal hoon aur unka intezaar besabri se karta rehta hoon.
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main bhi aapke chavannichaap blogsite par kuch likhna chahta hoon. kripaya nirdeshit karein…
zaroor liken..in dinon hindi talkies series mein likhne ka mera aagrah hai.yah aap ke bachpan ke cinema prem aur sakshatkaar ki yadein hain.shahar,cinemaghar,mahaul,films,pabandiyan…in saari baton par log likh rahe hain…aap bhi apne sansmaran bhej den…saath mein ek tasveer,chhota sa parichay aur pasand ki 10 hindi films…
ise aap brahmatmaj@gmail.com par meil kar den..agar mangal fonts ya unicode mein ho to suvidha rahegi.anyatha pdf file bhej den..main type kar loonga..
aap awashya likhen…prateeksha rahegi.
hindi talkies ki taza post ka link hai yahan…
http://chavannichap.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post_20.html