Veteran film maker Shyam Bengal passed away in Mumbai

By Suresh Kochattil.

Veteran film maker Shyam Bengal passed away in Mumbai. He was 90.

Shyam Sunder Benegal was born in Alwal , Secunderabad on December 14, 1934, in a Konkani-speaking Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin family.

His father hailed from Karnataka. When he was twelve years old, Shyam Benegal made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal.l who used to run a studio in Lal Bazar near Trimulgherry in Secunderabad.

He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad.

He moved to Bombay where began working in an ad agency ‘Blaze’ as a copywriter. He moved into as film making and later. into films. He was related to legendary film maker Guru Dutt, who was his second cousin.

Most of his movies were shot in and around the twin cities of Hyderabad and Telangana.

His first movie Ankur was shot in Kapra close to Alwal.

Nishant (end of the night) spotlighted Telangana Armed Struggle and was turned into a movie as a collaboration between Benegal and playwright Vijay Tendulkar. It was shot in Gundlapochampally village and had Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad and others.

Mandi was shot in Bhongir village.

Susman, a movie that showed the changing pace of a village due to rapid industrialisation, Shyam Benegal chose Pochampally village.

These movies were crafted at a time when India was in the thrall of action-packed movies produced by mainstream makers They turned Shyam Benegal into an auteur for what came to be called ‘parallel movies’.

When he directed Bharat Ek Khoj based on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India, Shyam Benegal reached out to V.K. Murthy who did cinematography for Guru Dutt’s movies. The result was a perfect play of light and shade in 1988.

And it harked back to the time Shyam Benegal spent in the photo studio of his father in Lal Bazaar, near Trimulgherry area of Secunderabad.