'Shyambabu Was Like A University'

'Being in his company was learning at every moment.'

Theatre director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Sunil Shanbag was associated with Shyam Benegal for many years.

After an acting part in Kalyug, Shanbag went on to co-write Benegal's mammoth television series, Bharat Ek Khoj.

He shares his memories with Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar and says, "He was extremely well read; his understanding of subjects was so sharp."

How far back does your association with Shyam Benegal go?

My association with him, not directly, goes back to the late 1970s, because the director under whom I worked for nearly a decade, Satyadev Dubey, was a part of Shyambabu's group.

Those days, there was a lot of overlap between experimental theatre and cinema. They would come and watch our theatre because they straddled both worlds.

So Shyambabu had been watching our theatre right from that time.

My direct contact with him came on the film Kalyug, which Shashi Kapoor produced and Shyambabu directed.

The story of the Mahabharat played out in a modern industrialist family. I played a small part in that film and spent a month-and-a-half on that shoot. He made the tradition of all the actors being there every day. It was a theatre-like atmosphere.

That is when I got to know him better and spend time with him.

Then I got to work with him on several television projects and another feature film. So my association with him goes on for another 10-12 years.

Tell us about the television projects. Any specific one that you cherish?

Several of them.

Bharat Ek Khoj (a series based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book Discovery of India) was directed by Shyam Benegal.

There were other writers but Shama Zaidi and I stayed on the project from start to finish.

Shama has been a very close associate of Shyambabu for many years; she continued to work with him though I moved on to other projects.

This was a lifetime project, I mean covering a thousand years of Indian history packed into 54 one-hour episodes. That's 54 hours of television!

It was a huge project, extremely challenging.

It was like an informal post graduation.

It was very exciting to work with Shyambabu; he was like a university.

Being in his company was learning at every moment.

He was extremely well read; his understanding of subjects was so sharp.

He was extremely generous. I was young and he would share his knowledge just out of the desire to talk about things.

Mr Benegal's passing is a huge loss. It's not just personal, more so for cinema. What are your thoughts?

His passing is a big blow to a particular kind of filmmaking. That's a bigger loss than anything else.

It is a personal loss, of course, but this is a very big loss.

We were very lucky because he celebrated his 90th birthday just a few days ago.

Can you tell us about that occasion?

It was a wonderful evening, put together by his family.

Many of us who had been associated with him over a period of time were fortunate to be there.

We spent an hour or so with him.

He was already not too well but he came and spent some time with us.

It was wonderful meeting him and your colleagues of 20 years ago.

It was a kind of gathering of the people who had worked with him and had been deeply impacted by him.