I knew Shyam Benegal as the Benegals and the da Cunhas were very close. My maternal uncle Kersy Katrak, and paternal uncle Gerson da Cunha were two of Shyam’s closest friends. In the early 60s, my dad and Shyam worked together in an ad agency called ASP, the latter’s passion for cinema was apparent even then. Ad films soon made way to art films—Ankur, Manthan, Bhumika, Nishant, all followed each other in quick succession. Shyam Benegal heralded the Parallel Cinema movement, also called Art Cinema or the New Wave in the early 70s.

I’ve always admired the Parallel Cinema movement. Men and women, like Benegal, Ketan Mehta, and Saeed Mirza, battled a formulaic, “naach gaana, dishoom dishoom” system, believing that movies were more than about entertainment, cinema, they felt was largely about social change. The truth is that if your hero and heroine weren’t running around trees, you ran from pillar to post looking to finance your film—and the outlets, our single screens (way before multiplexes came into existence) were only available for stars of the silver screen. Still, Shyam Benegal, given these limitations was prolific, it is true that he had funds for his early work, via Blaze Advertising, but proper releases were a paucity, many of his works found true recognition in film festivals like Berlin and Cannes.