He is called the pioneer of parallel cinema, a label he hates, ” I make my films based on sensibilities, and I cannot understand this labeling.” His films have won national awards galore and he has been awarded both the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan, but film director Shyam Benegal says he doesn’t want to be put on a pedestal. “Its like being put on a shelf and I don’t think I am ready for that!” A man of many talents, a deep thinker and an intellectual, Shyam Benegal remains humble and grounded. He sat down for an interview with Kavita Chhibber in Atlanta.
Tell me the early influences in your life.
The early influence of course was of my parents. My father was a professional photographer and a very fine amateur painter, and a very keen home movie buff. He used to make home movies with a 60 mm camera. We came from a very large family of eight children and so as each new child was born my father would film them growing up until the next child arrived. All these films were our family entertainment, because whenever anybody came for holidays, cousins etc we would watch those movies, plus classics that he would purchase. I consciously remember from the age of six I was absolutely enthralled by the movies and my one simple ambition was to make films myself. I actually borrowed my father’s camera and made a film “Chuttiyon main mauj maza” with cousins coming from different parts of India to spend summer holidays with us.
Yet you went and chose physics and math and then economics for your master’s degree, totally alien to filmmaking.
If I had said to any one that I wanted to make films they would have just laughed, as Hyderabad had nothing to do with films as a city. There was no possibility of learning how to make films and there was no film and television institute. So I decided I would earn a living and on the side make films. A cousin of mine, Gurudutt, had already set an example before me. Before he became a filmmaker he had worked as a dancer with Ravi Shankar’s older brother Uday Shankar. In fact he played Lakshman to Uday Shankar’s Ram in the Ramayana ballet that Uday Shankar performed at the Brabourne stadium in Bombay. Gurudutt then became a dance director, and then an assistant director to Amiya Chakrabarty, before becoming a full-fledged director. So there was his example before me and I was fully prepared for the struggle.
After graduating I came to Bombay and joined an advertising agency. I started as a copywriter and remained a copywriter for only about six months and then started making commercials and the company saw my passion and let me make ads for them. My first one was a Hindustan Lever ad featuring dehydrated peas! Then I never looked back. I learnt a lot from these ad films. It was a hands-on experience from scripts to lighting to camera.
From commercials to film making and that too a film like Ankur with an unorthodox theme. It did incredibly well, but did you expect it to? How did you choose Shabana Azmi, since she was fresh out of the Film and Television Institute with no prior experience?
I knew Ankur was one film I had to do before I died. I wasn’t sure if it would do well. Fortunately for me it was a popular as well as a critical success.. Initially I had wanted Waheeda Rehman who was a family friend, since she was very close to Gurudutt. She was a little worried because she wasn’t sure she should make a film like that which was unconventional since she was at the peak of her career. She shied away. Then I started looking for other people and then decided on Sharada, the award-wining South Indian actress, but her husband put his foot down, then I looked for Aparna Sen but she decided against it because she felt that she would not be able to speak the dialect. Then another assistant mentioned Shabana who had just passed out of the national film institute. The moment I saw her I knew she will do justice to the film, and she did indeed go on to win the national award for the film.
You also discovered Smita Patil while she read the news on television. Though she made Charandas Chor a children’s’ film with you she gave a stellar performance in Manthan. How did you gauge her caliber just watching her read the news?
The important thing was as a newsreader she was so relaxed and comfortable with what she was doing in front of the camera. In real life she’d get lost in the crowd, but the moment she came before the camera there was a total transformation. She was the kind of an actor who let the director mould her totally. Smita had an instinct that worked for her. She was a very intuitive actress and she never consciously worked on her part. Shabana is a very thinking person so she works out her roles.
Smita looked right in any kind of roles from glamorous to off beat, but as a dramatic actress of course Shabana has no peers. Manthan was a unique film in more than one respect. In the 1970s, the movement to establish milk cooperatives had begun in Gujarat, spear-headed by Dr. Verghese Kurien of the Indian National Dairy Development Board and involving about half a million dairy farmers. I had already made a documentary on the subject and gathered a great deal of research material, and had discussed with Dr. Kurien the possibility of making a feature film on it For finance we directly approached the farmers and half a million of them, contributed two rupees each. More people saw the film than any single film made in India and helped develop new cooperatives all over India. Twenty five years later, today, in new areas, it is still inspiring people. The movie was screened in many parts of the world, and the UNDP also showed it in different places in Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania.
Let’s talk about your latest offering Zubeida. Was it true that top actors turned down the role of the prince played ultimately by Manoj Bajpai? How did you decide on Karisma Kapoor for the role?
Anil Kapoor, Amir Khan and Shahrukh Khan turned down that role. No male star as successful as them will take the role that is either equal or dominated by the woman star. It may affect their career. They are stars and stars cater to a certain image and they do not want to break that image and I think that was the problem with those three.
That was the very reason I was hesitant to take Karisma. She was willing to do the role, but because it was totally different from anything she had done before, I wasn’t sure that she would be really interested and I didn’t have any clue of her caliber. But when I met her I was absolutely certain that she was the right choice and she more than fulfilled that faith. The greatest satisfaction in Zubeida was how the overall character of the film has emerged. AR Rahman did an incredible job with the music. I wanted his incredible ability to create a contemporary sound and within that contemporary sound give me that period. He delivered what I expected. I loved his music for Lagaan as well. It is very different from anything he has done before.
Though technically brilliant your movies always have a social or political theme. The women characters are treated very sensitively, and women’s issues repeatedly showcased.
That was mainly because growing up in Hyderabad, which was under the Nizam, I saw a lot of agitation against his rule, atrocities against the poor and women and the political and social changes left a deep impact, so when I joined college I was politically and socially very conscious. Our vice chancellor was a man who would invite great celebrities from all walks of life to visit and share their thoughts. It was very enriching and made me strongly motivated to make changes in the society.
You have made several documentaries and television series. One of the most extraordinary ones is the one you made on Satyajit Ray. What are the special memories of Ray that you cherish?
He was a man of monumental talents. He was a book illustrator well before he was a filmmaker. The cover design of Nehru’s book ” The Discovery of India” was by Ray, but I didn’t know that till he made “Pather Panchali” that he was the same Ray. That was the film, which actually crystallized my own ambition to be a filmmaker. He touched my life in a very deep way and then I went to see him. I was so in awe of him, when I met him for the first time, I was awed at meeting a great master, but he put me at ease. When I was making the film on him he was very cooperative. I often took advice from him and would show him all the documentaries I made, including my first feature film Ankur.
I remember his viewpoints and his own take on the cinema and I agreed with a lot of what he said. I learnt how to set the geography of the film from him and also to look at films in a particular way.
Another highly acclaimed film was Making of the Mahatma. I believe you put two and a half years of research and went through 12 scripts before it was made. What did you discover about Gandhi that was unusual during that research?
That he was not a genius, but had tremendous will power and believed strongly that to change the world you must first change yourself.