BOOK REVIEW: Putting the lens on Bharat
New book revisits the cinematic journey of director Shyam Benegal whose films gave voice to the oppressed
When Ankur (The Seedling) germinated into a film, Shyam Benegal had already made a name in the advertising world and theatre. He worked with names like Alyque Padamsee, Vijay Tendulkar and Satyadev Dubey. Ankur was special not only because it was Benegal’s first feature film that went on to add another dimension to Indian cinema but also because it was the result of over a decade of refinement of an idea that took the shape of a short story and finally a film.
Benegal wrote Ankur as a short story when he was still in college. Over the years, he wrote and rewrote the script. The film, which won several national and international awards, catapulted Benegal to the pinnacle of the Indian film industry and established another genre of storytelling on screen. It marked the beginning of a remarkable journey for the director and a section of the audience who had been waiting for a new wave.
This cinematic journey has been captured in Arjun Sengupta’s new book, Shyam Benegal: Film-maker of the Real India, published as part of Niyogi Books’ ‘Pioneers of Modern India’ series. The book gives a short account of the director’s early life and a filmography. Through the latter section, the author enumerates Benegal’s contributions to the industry not only as a filmmaker but as a visionary.
Benegal grew up in Secunderabad. His father, a Gandhian, was a photographer and greatly influenced young Benegal, who always wanted to become a filmmaker. He started his career in advertising and made over 1,000 films, many of which were award-winning.
Benegal focused on the ‘Bharat’ that many today talk about as a topic for politicking without being completely aware of it. Sengupta begins Benegal’s filmography with the latter’s first three films—Ankur, Nishant and Manthan—which depict the penury of the oppressed class in pre- and post-independent India. While Ankur ends with the flicker of revolution, the fire turns destructive in Nishant. However, in Manthan, the protagonist takes a more democratic way to forward the message of breaking the shackles of upper-class domination.
Sengupta then focuses on the two films, Bhumika and Mandi, which are women-centric. “In Bhumika, we have repeated flashbacks, and the use of different colour palettes to signify different time frames… Mandi is a more literary work and owes a lot to theatrical comic genres,” Sengupta writes.
In the subsequent chapters, Sengupta takes readers through Benegal’s oeuvre of works encompassing the history of India, marginal identities in the country and his recent works set in modern India. He aptly calls Benegal a ‘cinematic historian’ who, through his films, broke the barriers of regionality and time and showed the real India that always remained elusive in mainstream cinema.
The book is complete with an interview with the legendary director, who passed away on December 23 last year at the age of 90. This book could not be timed better and is a tribute to the maestro.
Book: Shyam Benegal: Film-maker of the Real India; Author: Arjun Sengupta; Publisher: Niyogi Books; Pages: 147; Price: Rs 299
