Opinion: Shyam Benegal, a gentleman filmmaker of rare integrity and skill

Hyderabad: A lot has been and is being written in the form of memoirs and tributes for Shyam Benegal sahab. A loss that would leave a void for meaningful cinema in India that would probably never be filled.

My relationship with him was different; mutually very respectful and fond, though I never actually worked with him. My memories of him are equally so. He was my father’s director in ‘Ankur’. The movie that seemingly set the template for the new wave cinema in India, was inspired primarily by the French and Polish cinema of that era. While auteurs Ray, Sen and Ghatak in one part of the country, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aravindan in a far distant one were chiselling their sculptures on celluloid, it was Shyam uncle and MS Sathyu sahab promising to change the country's cinemascape in the early seventies with Ankur and Garam Hawa respectively.

Owing to his association with Baba (late Qadir Ali Baig sahab), my actor-brother and I rather grew up on his cinema, watching the treasure trove of talent that he kept introducing film after film—the trove that the Indian film industry would treasure for half a century. Not just spell-binding performers, but technicians as well. It was this respect that propelled us to look at his work compulsively.

It was 40 years later, that he wanted to cast me as Jinnah in his 'Samvidhan'. I was away with tours of 'Quli: Dilon ka Shahzaada' in France and the USA. I was thrilled when he called me and sent the script. I still remember his personal email with details of the project he was working on, describing the character and the scenes, and even asking for my measurements himself for the period costumes, headgear and footwear to be made. These days even a director with a web series-and-a-half or just out of film school would not do so and would ask his ‘AD’ or ‘team member’ to forward the 'deck' and 'look book' to their actors. Such was his commitment to his craft.

Every time I performed in Mumbai at theatre festivals, he would be the first one to write a long email appreciating my work, or in typical old-school letters that he would still write with a fountain pen. Each phone call with him would be a motivation, not just about work, but about how to be humble and grounded. His etiquette and courtesy, knowledge of almost everything around the world, and presence of mind at that age were inspiring too. We were on the Board of Odyssey, the pioneering ad-film production company in Bangalore, where I was the ‘fond Hyderabadi bachcha’ of his actor.

'Dada Saheb Phalke' which I performed at the inaugural of IFFI in Goa for '100 years of Cinema in India' had a special place in his heart, and his admiration of my work on stage in my heart. It was a delight to interact with a filmmaker whose grammar of the English language was as perfect as his cinema grammar. A well-read, intelligent mind behind the viewfinder. A Master of his Craft, in short

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Padmashri Mohammed Ali Baig. The writer is a celebrated stage and screen actor and Padma awardee theatre scion.