'I have done a one-hour film on soya bean with him!'
Neena Gupta worked with Shyam Benegal in Trikaal, Susman, Mandi and the Doordarshan television series Yatra, and she calls him an encyclopaedia.
"I have been wanting to go and see him for sometime now," she tells Subhash K Jha.
"I have worked with a lot of good directors over the past years but I worked with him when I was very new."
"We used to joke and say that he can talk about everything, from the history of a safety pin to anything in the world! He was very erudite, very knowledgeable.
"I went to Rio de Janeiro with him for Trikaal. I have learnt so much from him, not just about filmmaking but about life.
"Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda is one of my favourite films. He had taken somebody else and that didn't work out. The last minute, he called me. Of course, he called and I jumped to do it. But it was a very difficult film. I still don't understand that film sometimes.
"But his technique in that film is amazing. He would tell you the gist of the film, and then he will let you interpret the character. People don't know about the secret project I've done with Shyam Benegal."
"I have done a one-hour film on soya bean with him!" Neena informs us.
"They were promoting the soya bean then, and soya bean oil. We were shooting in a village in Hyderabad. There was a very nice song in that film too. People don't know about this film.
"Then I was supposed to do a movie adaptation of Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen with him. He fell sick. so that film didn't happen. I felt very bad.
"He always made women-oriented films, like Trikaal, Mandi...
"He did this amazing series called Discovery of India, which is an archival thing today. I was not in that; I was shooting, so he didn't take me. I got very angry, so I went to his set. I said, make me stand in the crowd. He was very embarrassed and said, 'No, why will you stand in the crowd?'"
Then Neena comes to her most important work with Shyambabu.
"A very, very big thing I did with him was Yatra. He gave me a double role. We used to have a train to ourselves and we would decorate our own bogie. Shyambabu had his private bogie. Yatra was entirely shot on a train, and we traveled all over India in it.
Neena recalls her visit to Paris with Shyambabu. "He knew such amazing restaurants and had amazing knowledge about food. He would take us to expensive and highly rated places in Paris.
"I was a vegetarian, so I wouldn't eat anything. One day, during the shooting, he asked me what I would like to have. I said, I am in France, so I'll have French fries. He laughed and laughed. He said, 'Stupid girl, French fries are not French!'
"We stayed in a hotel in Champs Elysees and the room was so small that there was just this bed.
"I had to wear a sari, and get ready from the hotel itself. But there was no space to put on my sari! So I used to climb up on the bed and wear my sari.
"Shyam was a very important part of my life and career. Shooting his films were like picnics."
"Mandi had an amazing message. What he said was that sex workers have their own rights, their own feelings. We should treat them as human beings, not as objects."
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