Shyam Benegal: Legendary filmmaker, who made classics like Ankur and Bharat Ek Khoj, revolutionised Hindi cinema with social realism and powerful storytelling.
Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal, who heralded a new era in Hindi cinema with the ‘parallel movement’ in the 1970s and 1980s with classics such as Ankur, Mandi and Manthan, died on Monday, December 23, after battling chronic kidney disease. He was 90.
Shyam Benegal
The filmmaker, a star in the pantheon of Indian cinema’s great auteurs, died at Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital, where he was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). “He passed away at 6.38 pm at Wockhardt Hospital Mumbai Central. He had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years, but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason for his death,” his daughter Pia Benegal told media. He is survived by his daughter and wife, Nira Benegal.
Shyam Benegal
Just nine days ago, on his 90th birthday, actors who had worked with him through the decades gathered to wish him on the landmark day, almost as a last sayonara to the filmmaker who had given them perhaps the best roles of their careers. Among those who had gathered were Shabana Azmi, who made her debut with the powerful Ankur in 1973; Naseeruddin Shah, Rajit Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Divya Dutta, and Kunal Kapoor. That photograph of a smiling Benegal with his actors down the ages is his last in public.
Many worlds, many forms
In his prolific, almost seven-decade career, Benegal straddled diverse worlds, diverse mediums, and diverse issues, right from rural distress and feminist concerns to sharp satires and biopics. His oeuvre encompassed documentaries, films, and epic television shows, including Bharat Ek Khoj, an adaptation of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India, and Samvidhaan, a 10-part show on the making of the Constitution.
And he wasn’t calling it quits anytime soon. “I’m working on two to three projects; they are all different from one another. It’s difficult to say which one I will make. They are all for the big screen,” Benegal said on the occasion of his 90th birthday. He also spoke of his frequent visits to the hospital and that he was on dialysis. “We all grow old. I don’t do anything great (on my birthday). It may be a special day, but I don’t celebrate it specifically. I cut a cake at the office with my team.” His films include Bhumika, Junoon, Suraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda, Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa, most counted as classics in Hindi cinema.