 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Paranjoy Gohathakurtha. This is the third and the final segment of the interview I did with Shyam Benegal, India's greatest living filmmaker. The first part of this three-part series focused on his forthcoming film on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the second part we discuss politics, the Muslim question, majoritarianism, communalism. In this, the third and the final segment of this interview, I try and get Shyam Benegal to reminisce. He talks about the individuals who are no more with us, at least three actors whose fame was because of him, the late Smita Patil, Om Puri, Amrish Puri. He talks about others who are no more with us, Leela Naidu, Girish Karnad, Tom Ulta, Van Raj Bhatia, Shatujit Rai, Mrilal Sen, Rithvi Ghatak, among others. Let's go back to your life as a filmmaker. You were born in a Konghani-speaking family, Chitrapur, Saraswat, Brahmin. Yet you made several films which dealt with cast, exploitation, the importance of cast, including Summer in 1999, very, very critical of the cast system. Yet you are, I mean, cast continues to remain an important factor in Indian India's life. And the intersection of cast and class is something you've dealt with very frequently in several of your films. Would you like to make a few comments and observations on where we are today? Because the cast system hasn't died out. It's still as important as ever in shaping large sections of Indian society. See, Indian cast and class tend to be more or less the same, except that, you see, the class system can change, the classes can change, but cast does not change. Now the real problem in India is not so much problem of class as much as it is problem of cast, you know, and that hasn't changed. And we have not been able to change that as we plan to, as we have been fighting to, because, you know, it's so, so, I mean, it has such strong roots, you know, the cast system of the country. So it has to be, and we've been fighting against it for a long time. And even people who are fighting against it themselves will even cast, you know, and they are very proud of their casts. Okay. You know, you made your first film, I was told at the age of 12, when you used a camera which belonged to your father, who was a photographer, Sridhar Benegalji. And much later, you did a master's degree in economics from Osmania University in Hyderabad, and you formed a film society over there. But cinema is part of your blood. You were a second cousin of Guru Dutt, whose maternal grandmother was the sister of your paternal grandmother. Then you worked in advertising. You were a copywriter in Lin Tass, and you made many, many documentary films and advertising films and short films. But a lot of people remember you for the first four films that you made. 1973, Ankur, The Seedling, talking about the economic and sexual exploitation in Telangana, introduced actors like Shabana Azmi, Anantnag, Sadhu Meher, all of them became famous. Then came Nishad, the end of the night, the end of the night, the night's end, a teacher's wife who's abducted and gang raped by four zamindars. And the official dump turns a deaf ear to them. And then came the unique 1976 Manthan, or the churning, which was actually produced by 500,000 farmers of Gujarat, all of whom contributed two rupees for the making of the film. And you talked about rural empowerment and the formation of cooperatives. Bhumika, of course, was loosely based on the life of the Marathi actress Hansa Wadkar. She led a very flamboyant and controversial life. But Smita Patil became famous because of her portrayal. And it's not just about an individual's search for self-fulfillment in a patriarchal society. You talked about how even in earlier years, you talked about the issue of gender relations in a whole bunch of people who very few people knew, some of whom are no longer with us. Film and television institute of Pune, the national school of drama, you taught at the Film and Television Institute of India, 1966 to 1973. You were chairman twice, 1980 to 83, 1989 to 92. And then, I mean, you, whether it be Nasiruddin Shah or Om Puri or Smita Patil or Shaman Azmi or Kulbushan Karbanda or Amrishpuri, you meet them what they are. How do you look back on the films that you made in the 70s, 1973 to 77, Ankur, Nishant, Mantan and Bhomika? Well, I don't think about them anymore, you know, because it's done, it's finished as far as I'm concerned. It was a phase in my life. And there are other things that happened. If I choose to live in the past, I would be thinking about them all the time. But I don't choose to live in that past. You know, I mean, some things were successful, some things were not so successful. But then life goes on, you know. And so I don't think about what happened yesterday. I have to think about what's going on today and what to do tomorrow. I mean, I'm not going to think about what I'd already done. I don't want to get caught in the past, in that sense, you know. So it's one of those things. In fact, I often forget that there were certain subjects that I had touched upon, made films about and so on. But then I don't think about them. Let me remind you of three individuals. I dare say you made those three individuals. And they are no more with us. And all of them, at least two of them. You're talking about actors? Yes. I'm talking about Om Puri. I'm talking about Smita Patil. I'm talking about Amritsha Puri. Yeah, yeah. No, they were brilliant actors. In fact, all of them, all those three started their film careers with me. I'm aware of that. That's why I asked you. Today you're 88 and they are no more. They are passed away. They were much, much younger than you. Yeah, they were. You think about them. You have some recollections you'd like to make about Smita Patil. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no question about it. She was because she was among the most spontaneous of all the actors that I've worked with. That was because she was not trained as an actress. You know, so her feelings would be very much more spontaneous than somebody who's trained to feel in a particular way because there would be a difference in the way they perform. Now, in the same yardstick, you see Shabana was a trained actress. You know, but Smita was a wonderful actress, but she couldn't repeat what she did, you know, because she was not an actress from the theater. You know, Shabana had training, so she could play the, you know, the parts in a way because of her training at the theater and training in film school. But Smita hadn't come. She came directly on the scene and in fact, she wasn't even planning to be an actress. You know, until I saw her and I asked her parents if I could, if she would say yes to me if I offered her a role in a film, you know, so this Nishant, which was her first film, but after that she got very involved in Selma and so on. So she passed away at a very young age? At a very young age. She was about 30, 31, between 30 and 31. You know, that that's very unfortunate actually. She, because it really had to do with the, it had something to do with her, not childbirth, but with complications following the childbirth. You know, her son of course is doing well now as an actor. She had a troubled personal life. Yeah, she had. What are your recollections of Om Puri? Well, Om was a trained actor. He went to the National School of Drama. But having said that, you know, his background was of extreme poverty. He had to get a scholarship to get into the National School of Drama. And he was a, you know, he used to do all kinds of odd jobs in order to keep himself alive. You know, and he done, his life experience was quite extraordinary. You know, from absolutely kind of working class to middle class, you know, his life experience was an incredible one because he, he was brought up and he was, when he grew up, he grew up in extreme poverty. You know, so his, his education was also through scholarships and so on. So he was a, he, he, he was a, I think his experience, his early experience made him into a very fine actor because, you know, he had a tremendous sense of recall. Like Smita Patil, he had a troubled personal life. Well, you know, that of course, yes. You know, Smita didn't have so many problems in a personal life in that sense. Ohm had a lot of problems and it was very complicated. Including his addiction to alcohol. Yeah. That was, that was much later, of course, because in the early years, he was, when he was working with me, he never, there was no alcohol in the system at that time. It was much later. What about Amrishpuri, who often played negative? Amrish was an extremely dedicated actor, extremely dedicated. He had tremendous experience in the theatre. He also was, you know, he, he was a student, meaning he, he was a kind of chela of Satyadev Dubey and very dedicated and Dubey produced plays and Amrishpuri could do, I mean, and he was a, he was absolutely ideal actor because, you know, you could give him about a dialogue, I mean, dialogue sheets, one dialogue that, that's 10 pages. He had such a photographic memory, he would just look at it page after page after page after page and say, okay, I'm ready for the thing. That was the other thing that he had was, even on stage, he would say, do you want me, you don't want me to blink, right? You want me to just look without my eye-breaking. He could do that for half an hour, extraordinary. He too died at a young age. Yeah, well, yes, I guess. There are three others who were not made by you. They were already very, very well accomplished by the time you used them in your films, who are no more with us. I'd like you to recall your memories of three individuals, Gidish Karnad, Leela Naidu and Tom Ulta. Will you talk about Leela Naidu first? Well, Leela Naidu, you know, was a, she grew up abroad and she was very good at French. But when she, when she acted for the first time with these people, I mean, Jim Ivory and his partner, what's his name? Merchant. Now, you know, she, they brought her. Ivory merchant. Yeah, so they, they brought her to India and she acted for them. And it was after that that I put her in Trikal. And she was very good, very, very dedicated to her work. You know, she, she was absolutely wonderful as an actress. But unfortunately, she would, she had a, you know, she got into, because of Dom Beret's, you know, he, she, they, they fell in love with each other. But the fact was that Dom was an alcoholic and that had its effect on her. So she started to drink as well, you know, which was very, very unfortunate. Because according to me, you know, Dom was a very talented poet. But the fact was that Leela Naidu's career tended to get affected by that. Both were very talented people, of course. What are your recollections of Girish Karnad? Girish, you know, Girish was probably one of the very best playwrights we ever produced. And also an actor. You know, and he wrote and he chose to write in Canada. Although it was very easy for him to write in English as well. Because he had, you know, he was an Oxford person and so on. And then he wrote English beautifully. But he chose not to write in English, but to write in Canada. And he did brilliant job of that. Because he was certainly, if not the best, one of the best playwrights we produced. What about his acting talents? Well, you know, as an actor, he was, I'm not quite sure that his talent as an actor exceeded his talent as a playwright. How would you evaluate Tom Alter? He's also no more with us. Tom Alter? Yes. Well, Tom Alter was, you know, he was a, he was another very interesting person because, you know, Tom Alter was an American, but he had grown up in India. And he spoke Urdu with such excellent accent and the vocabulary in Urdu was fantastic. You know, Tom was, if you didn't see him, you wouldn't believe that he was an American. You know, because he spoke, his Leja and Urdu was unbelievable. Excellent. There was another person you worked with who's also no more with us. Who is this? Music composer, Van Raj Bhatia. Oh, Van Raj, of course. Van Raj was again, see, I had the good fortune to work with some very great talents. Van Raj Bhatia was one of those. You see, because Van Raj was a student, I mean, of a music professor, Nadia Boulanger, who happened to be the teacher of practically every great conductor and composer of Europe, you know, in the 20th century. So he studied with her and his compositional capabilities, you know, were outstanding. It's amazing. You know, you worked with people from Van Raj Bhatia all the way up to A.R. Rahman. A.R. Rahman, of course, was, you know, A.R. Rahman, there's no question that he is probably the most successful composer we have, but he's essentially a film composer, music composer for films, particularly for songs. You know, Van Raj was not that kind of composer. He was mostly a composer of western music, but mind you, Rahman himself studied western music a lot. You know, Rahman comes from a family of musicians, you know. His father was a musician and what more he was a musician for films and also a composer. You know, you have been a part of India's cinema industry or cinema industry for a very, very long time over. You started at age 12, but your first feature film, Mankud was 1974. Now, you often described as a pioneer of so-called parallel cinema in India. Well, that's a term I hate. That's a term I hate. If somebody gave it, you know, and then so that's why I became a kind of, I said, how can, what is the meaning of parallel? You know, it doesn't make any sense to me, but the fact is because, you know, this isn't what, what would you call your films like I said in the context of when I was making those films. I would call it new cinema because we were making a bit different kind of film from what the industry was doing. You know, I got you. You made a documentary film on Satyajit Rai. He worked with him a lot. Some people even say you had some sort of a professional rivalry with him, which I think was. No professional rivalry. I saw him as my guru figure, you know. Okay. So, I mean, when you look at the greatest filmmakers in India, surely Satyajit Rai is one of them. And there are several others. I'd like you to name some of them. You know, I'd like you to talk about the great filmmakers who, according to you, are among the greatest filmmakers this country. India? Yes, Indian filmmakers. Well, without question, Satyajit Rai was my father best that we produced. Then, of course, there was Rithik also, Rithik Ghatak. He was a bit of a mad genius. And, you know, he, he left a lot of his work incomplete as well. But the fact was that he was very, very brilliant. There was no question about it. As I'm going to say, it was very prolific, of course. I mean, you know, he was always in a hurry to work in the sense that I don't know, he wanted to finish this film rather quickly. But then he was very economic. You know, if somebody took a certain amount of money to make a film, he would make the same kind of film at about half the budget. You know, so Miral was again a very, very talented person, but always in a hurry, as I said, you know, equally. You've lived three filmmakers from Bengal. What about filmmakers from other parts of the country, including your own state Maharashtra? Well, there are some others like, but you know, I would, why Bengal? Because you see, it's the way the market was in Bengal. Because, you know, you know, new people who made new kinds of films could count on a middle-class, urban middle-class audience, particularly educated middle-class audience. But rest of India is not quite like that. Take Kerala. You had Adur Gopalakrishnan. You had the late Aravindan. You have had greats from the world of Tamil cinema, Kannada cinema, Telugu cinema. But that's, you know, these are people from industries that are where you can create a parallel system. You know, Adur, for instance, came from Malayalam cinema. And Malayalam cinema was because, you know, the, if you look at the literacy level of Kerala, you find that it has always been between 95 and 100 percent. So, they grew up in an atmosphere where you had a great deal of literacy and even people living in villages had urban lifestyles, you know. So, there was a, there's a certain kind of, because Kerala is in many ways very different from the rest of India. You know, you are very highly interested. But you had very, very good films being made in the Tamil language in Kannada, in Telugu. Who do you not agree? Not in Telugu so much. I see. What about Marathi cinema? Marathi films? Govind Nehalani. Govind was not a Marathi film maker. He made one Marathi film. But the fact was Govind actually the Hindi film maker, correct. But he made that but basically Marathi was on its own in the 30s and up to middle 40s. You know, because the nurturing ground for them was Prabhat film studios. But when Prabhat collapsed, Marathi cinema as a result also to some large extent collapsed. You know, otherwise it had the status of an all India film. But it reverted back to it being a regional film, you know. Okay. How would you evaluate the current state of filmmaking in India? You have some films which are being made by people, you know, who you know very well. You worked with them. My daughter has worked with Anubhav Sinhaan Bheed. He's worked with Sudhir Bhishra in Afwar. There's Nandita Das. There are several other film makers in Mumbai who you wouldn't exactly describe them as mainstream Bollywood. Yet again, you know, they would disagree with mainstream Bollywood. These are formulaic constructions, you know, because there is a certain traditional way of making films. And in that traditional way, you have songs and dances and various other things. And you know, it's a kind of what some of the practitioners themselves say masala film, you know, something for everybody, you know, that kind of film. You know, so it defies even genre. You know, it defies even the definition of genre because it there are there is no genre. It's just everything in it. It's a kind of masala film. India is the biggest film producing country in the world. Yeah. I mean, we, we know, but you know, in India, I think we created films. We didn't be we broke away from genres. You know, although there was at one time, there were like start films and, you know, comedies and this and that and melodramas. There were different kinds of films. But I think all they all got put together into one biryani. Yeah, India remains the world's biggest or just in terms of shared numbers, the biggest film producing country in the world, we still making about 1000 films, but the entire economics and the viewing habits of people seem to be changing with OTT or over the top platforms with technology. And we see a lot of cinema being made in other parts of the country and not just out of Mumbai, which are also being recognized internationally. Would you like to comment a little bit about the changing trends? See, television has a slightly different background, you know, because television did not go through the process of cinema. And it came at a time when it could very easily see itself as part of the television revolution, the world over. So our television, whatever you make, if you make a kind of story in television, or you have these different platforms now, where you have series, you make different kinds of television series, and different kind of, you know, four part, six part, ten part series, you, it's no long, you don't need the old construction of the old constructs of them. Now it's a much more, much closer to life experience. And it's also television has as when you say television, you also mean the smaller screen. Yeah, since it has come into your home, and you see it, then you see it as part of your own extended life. You know, it's part of that now. Cinema was not like that. It was always away from you. You went to the cinema and you and got enveloped by cinema. Yeah, the dark cinema hall, the big screen, etc. So is this good or is this bad? I mean, what are the positives and the negatives of the new experiences of the audio visual medium? What are the pros and what are the cons? What are the changes that you see? I mean, you've been long enough in the business to evaluate it. Well, you know, now is the time for television to influence cinema in many ways. You know, it's the thing has got reversed. I see. Among the international filmmakers, who are the ones which have had the biggest influence on you as a filmmaker, as a filmmaker. There are different people, you know, the European filmmakers, but Neuralism has had, I think, the earliest influences were from Neuralism, from Italian Neuralism, you know, Vittorio De Sica, people like that. But otherwise, I don't think it's been, I mean, I can't count any influence as such. At 88, what are the biggest, I mean, this is my last question to you. What have been your biggest regrets and what have been you consider your biggest achievements? First, your achievements? I have, I have very few regrets. Well, I've lived most of my life in any case. So I have very few regrets. But I don't see, you know, I haven't had great achievements in that sense. But I've had what one might call, you know, I've had my share of awards and this and that and so on. You're being very humble? No, no, I'm not being humble because... 18 National Film Awards, Dada Sahib Falke Award, India's highest award for filmmakers in 2005, Padma Shree, Padma Bhushan. I don't see, I mean, it's to me now, it's all water in the bridge, under the bridge, you know, it's in the past. I'm tempted to go back again to a question where I was, I wasn't able to understand you. You seem non-committal about expressing your views on the current political dispensation in India in the last nine years. Do you, I mean, I once again go back to you to ask you... No, I'm not reluctant to such. I don't think, but I think there has been a certain amount of stability. You know, I mean, I may disagree with the politics of our leaders. But the fact is that I mean, that doesn't affect me as much as it would have elsewhere in the world. You know, because we can... I mean, my life hasn't been affected too much. But... And people around me have not been affected so much. But surely you can't ignore... The only thing that worries me is inflation. That's all? That worries me. What about unemployment? I mean, what about the fact that we are today the most populous country in the world? No, but when we talk about unemployment, there's a lot of informal employment. Is it not formal employment? Informal employment. You see, we have never had, when you talk about percentage of employment, employment of what kind? Are we talking about government jobs? Are we talking about the industry? Or are we talking about agriculture? What are we talking about? We are talking about decent jobs, as they are called. Decent jobs that you have made a film on child labour or a series for the International Labour Organization. The classification is a decent job. Many argue that today, India is the world's most populous country. We have more than 1.4 billion people. The difference between India and China is the demographic profile. The median age of India is 28, 29. The median age of China is 30, 38, 39. Half the population is below that age of 27, 29. 27, 28, 29. That age group. Many argue that unemployment is at its peak. Decent work. Decent work as defined by the International Labour Organization. That we haven't seen this kind of unemployment among the youth, among the so-called educated youth, as we are seeing today. But with inflation, would you not say this is one of the biggest problems that we are facing in India at present? No, but I think it would be wrong to compare China with India, because most of the resources of the country are in the hands of the government in places like China and the Exo with India. You have that kind of thing. But India is not like that, because everything is not under the control of the government. But wait, I could argue that the gap between the rich and the poor in India, and many economists and many social scientists have argued with facts and figures that we have become more unequal than the few. I know that the amount of wealth, national wealth, is in the hands of very few people. As far as India is concerned, we have not solved the problem of distribution. There's a lot of wealth accumulation in very few hands. Now, we have to do something about that so that it gets spread. Are we doing enough about it? I don't know. I mean, it's difficult for me to say, and I haven't thought about it also now. All right. I mean, I think you've been very kind in giving me as much as you have. It's been more than two hours that I've spent with you, and we've recorded everything. And thank you very much for your time and for answering all the questions I asked you. And even if I was not satisfied, I was even disappointed with some of your answers. You never ducked or chose not to answer any questions. I wish your health improves from middling to good, and you have a long life ahead of you. Thank you. Thank you. This is where we conclude the third and the final segment of an interview I did on the 1st of July, 2023 with India's greatest living filmmaker, Shyam Benegal. I thought I would get half an hour of his time. He gave me two hours. We edited parts of it. In the first part, he talks about his forthcoming film on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the second part, we discuss politics, the Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And in this, the third and final segment, Shyam Benegal, is in a reminiscent mood. He talks about several people who are no more with us. Thank you very much for being with us on this program. Keep watching NewsClick. And do remember to subscribe to the channel.