Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, a pioneer of the parallel cinema movement in India during the 1970s and 1980s, was cremated with full state honors on Tuesday in Mumbai, including a three-gun salute.
Benegal, known for films such as Ankur, Mandi, Nishant, and Junoon, passed away on Monday at a hospital due to chronic kidney disease. He had celebrated his 90th birthday on December 14.
The filmmaker’s last rites were performed around 3 PM at the Shivaji Park crematorium in Dadar. Benegal’s wife, Nira, and daughter, Pia, were joined by his contemporaries, colleagues, and a younger generation of actors and artists in paying their respects.
Among those present were actors Naseeruddin Shah, Rajit Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Ila Arun, who starred in many of his films. Other attendees included actor Ratna Pathak Shah, her son Vivaan Shah, writer-poet Gulzar, director Hansal Mehta, lyricist-writer Javed Akhtar, actors Divya Dutta, Boman Irani, Kunal Kapoor, and Anang Desai.
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, whose Film Heritage Foundation recently restored Benegal’s 1976 film Manthan for a screening at the Cannes Film Festival, was also in attendance.
Gulzar, reflecting on Benegal’s legacy, said, “He hasn’t departed, we have departed from him and seen him off. He brought a revolution, he has gone with that revolution of change in cinema. Nobody else will be able to bring that wave, revolution once again. We will remember him for a long time and we will talk about him for a long time to come.”
Actor Shreyas Talpade, who starred in Benegal’s 2008 satire Welcome to Sajjanpur, called the experience one of his most memorable. “I was a changed person after I returned from the shoot of the film. I think we will miss his talks the most. He mesmerized us whenever he used to talk. It’s a huge loss,” Talpade said.
Tributes continued to pour in for celebrated filmmaker Shyam Benegal, with Amitabh Bachchan, Nafisa Ali, Karisma Kapoor and Ajay Devgn remembering the “stalwart” and “legend” for his contribution to Indian cinema.
Bachchan paid homage to the director in an X post. “We have lost another stalwart of the Film Industry today .. Shyam Benegal passes away .. Prayers and condolences (sic)” he wrote.
Shabana Azmi’s said that he was a guru who influenced not only her approach towards acting but also her understanding of life.
It was Benegal who gave Azmi her first acting role in his directorial debut “Ankur”, which explored themes of caste, class, and sexual politics, with a focus on the struggles of rural women.
Over the years, the duo collaborated on several projects, including “Nishant” (1975), “Junoon” (1978), “Susman” (1978) and “Antarnaad” (1992).
“Shyam Benegal has been my guru in everything, not just in acting but in the way I view the world. When I went abroad for Ankur with him to the Berlin Film Festival and, as a young kid with stars in my eyes, I wanted to run to the first shopping place.
“But he asked all kinds of questions to the taxi driver; he wanted to know about the garden and the history,” Azmi told PTI in a recent interview.
The 74-year-old actor described Benegal as a “progressive” and “well-informed” filmmaker.
“He opened me up in different ways. When we went to the (Berlin) festival, he would say, ‘Let’s watch this film for this reason’. So he was like a guru to me,” she added.