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Shyam Benegal was the Showman of Parallel Cinema who dared to cast talented newcomers who later emerged megastars
Sr. journalist recalls when filmmaker Shyam Benegal told him, “Raj Kapoor Saab and I share the same Birthday; it’s surreal that I directed his granddaughter Karisma Kapoor in Zubeidaa”

Published
2 months agoon
By
CB Desk
By Chaitanya Padukone
What a dazzling career crown studded with glorious credentials! Winner of 18 National Film Awards and several other coveted accolades, legendary visionary filmmaker ‘late’ Shyam Benegal has not only left behind a rich, cinematic legacy but also an inspiring glorious success story! Initially, he was known for his arty-genre “parallel-cinema” arty movies like ‘Ankur’, Nishant’, ‘Manthan’, ‘Bhumika’. Not confining to only the rural milieu, Shyam with his rebel streak, also deviated to direct the award-winning Kalyug (1981) which explores an up-market urban family-feud-rival business group back-drop, ‘Kalyug’ featured mainstream star actors like Shashi Kapoor (also the producer), Raj Babbar, Rekha and Urmila Matondkar (as child-artiste)!
On a personal level, the frank, outspoken yet full of empathy Shyam sir was a practical guiding catalyst in my initial career phase. It was he who had advised me, decades ago, to take up film journalism instead of getting into advertising copywriting.
Initially, I connected with Benegal-Sir through the maverick iconic ad-film-maker Prahlad Kakar, who assisted him with whom I also attended the background music live recording session of Benegal’s landmark movie ‘Nishant’. Where I got to meet its illustrious composer, Vanraj Bhatia. A few years later, I re-connected with Benegal-Sir through (Guru Dutt’s younger brother) Devi Dutt, producer of the 1983 classic ‘Masoom’ who was also his cousin.

Shyam Benegal in a jestful mood on stage with journalist Chaitanya Padukone
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Over the past four decades, I used to interact with Shyam-Sir at various film events and also at the Mumbai-centric MAMI Film Festival events. It may be recalled here, that it was pioneer-visionary Benegal Sir, the first Chairperson of the annual MAMI from the 1999 edition. Being dedicated to his selfless passion for curating and bringing world cinema and Indian movies to Mumbai—he remained the active Chairperson right up to the 2014 edition. Advancing age and health upsets were never any constraints for Benegal-Sir. Who like Raj Kapoor, believed in the mantra “the show must go on—making movies is my lifeline”.
Ever since he deviated from advertising and docu-features into the feature film-making zone, he made most of his avant-garde realistic yet entertaining ‘parallel-cinema’ movies on stories-scripts which appealed to him. Never did he compromise, to jump on the lucrative bandwagon of commercial fantasy-escapist formula-movies.
“My focus and priority are clear regarding subjects and I have dared to cast immensely talented newcomer actors. Even those with unconventional looks, who have later on emerged top stars in Bollywood,” Benegal sir had said speaking to me.
Acclaimed star-actors like Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Neena Gupta, Smita Patil, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Girish Karnad, Kunal (Shashi) Kapoor, Ila Arun, Urmila M. and many more newcomer artistes and talented technicians all owe their initial catapulting into fame- acclaim in the Hindi films-arena, to ‘star-maker showman’ Benegal. This also explains why a galaxy of most of the dynamic film-maker’s protégé-celebs attended his memorial prayer meeting in Mumbai last Saturday evening. While paying rich sentimental tributes they proudly acknowledged creative genius “Shyam Babu” (as he was fondly called) as their guiding-light-mentor-meticulous-Guru!

Shyam Benegal’s prayer meet: L-R: Javed Akhtar, Urmila Matondkar, Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah
Also read: Remembering Shyam Benegal: A prolific career spanning a wide array of films
While speaking to me in the past, Benegal-Sir once mentioned to me, that he felt a sense of modest pride, when he cast Karisma Kapoor in his National Film award-winning movie ‘Zubeidaa’ (2001) which also had co-stars Rekha and Manoj Bajpayee. Justified Benegal to me, “As you are aware, Raj Kapoor-Saab and I share the same birthday (Dec 14th). It all seemed somewhat surreal that I ‘directed’ his granddaughter Karisma Kapoor in ‘Zubeidaa’ and she even won the Filmfare Best Actress Award. Proving that she is a brilliant chip of the Raj Kapoor block,” an elated Shyam Benegal-Sir had shared with me.

Shyam Benegal on stage with Chaitanya Padukone and Newton Dir. Amit Masurkar
An interesting facet is that multi-faceted Shyam-Sir nurtured a sense of esteem-pride that he belonged to the Konkani-speaking Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin community. The modest Benegal was formally felicitated on stage as the “Saraswat Ratna” by eminent members of the Kanara Saraswat Association. At the same event, the ‘Junoon’ award-winning director ‘Shyam-Babu’ honored young director Amit Masurkar (also from the same community) for winning his first-ever National Best Hindi Film Award (2018) for his black-comedy drama movie ‘Newton’! It was my humbling privilege that I was the moderator-anchor at this event. Shedding his serious, sober image the ‘outspoken’ Shyam who had an awesome memory, fondly shared some amusing nuggets of his own career flashbacks and regaled the audience. Both Benegal-Sir and I shared hearty peals of laughter on stage, at his sharp-witted comments.
(The author of this piece is a Phalke Academy Award-winning eminent senior film-journalist-author)
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