Legendary filmmaker Shyam Benegal passed away on December 23 at the age of 90. Shreyas Talpade, who has worked with him in Welcome To Sajjanpur, fondly remembers his experiences working with the legendary filmmaker Shyam Benegal, describing him as an institution in Indian cinema.
Talking to ETimes, he said, “I think it’s a huge loss. Shyam Babu was an institution in himself. I was truly fortunate to have worked with him on a film like Welcome To Sajjanpur. When the film became a hit, he was very happy. More than anything, what I have learned from him is immense. The discipline he had, the kind of freedom he gave his actors, and the kind of atmosphere he created on set. He was always happy and smiling. He was extremely knowledgeable. He had this quality of hypnotizing people when he would talk. He was so good that you just wanted to sit there quietly and listen. He was a person who was so strongly behind parallel cinema at a time when commercial cinema was doing so well. But he held onto his conviction and did what he had to do, the way he had to do it.”
Recalling fond memories with the filmmaker, the actor added, “On the first day of the shoot of Welcome To Sajjanpur, Ravi Kishan and I had a scene together. The scene was written in a particular manner. Then we started improvising. Rajen Kothari ji (cinematographer) was lighting the scene, and Shyam Babu was sitting in front of the monitor reading a newspaper. After the lighting was done, Ravi and I started doing the scene. Somewhere in between, Shyam Babu said, “Wait, what are you guys doing?” We said, “The scene, sir.” He said, “But this is not the scene.” We said that we were following what was written on the paper. He said, “No, no. You were improvising. What happened to that?” We asked whether he’d like us to do what we had improvised. We thought he wouldn’t like it, but he said it was very good. We thought he was reading the newspaper, but he was listening to everything that we were doing. He said, “I will decide on the edit what all I want to keep. But you don’t stop yourselves. Let it flow.” Those things he said made so much of a difference in the way the film shaped up. He gave us a lot of confidence. Welcome To Sajjanpur remains one of my most favourite shooting experiences.”
“He called me when I faced a health hazard. He asked me how I was doing. That was very sweet of him. We will miss him,” he concluded.
