Kolkata, Jan 24 (UNI) Actor Rajit Kapur still struggles to believeauteur Shyam Benegal is no more, as he continues to feel the permanence of his presence around him like the Daffodils in William
Wordsworth’s famous poem and compares him to Sooraj Ka Satva Ghoda which signifies balance.
“I don’t feel he is gone. I can’t use a word to describe him. I feel good when I think about him. Suddenly William Wordsworth hits me ……” said Kapur reciting the evergreen lines from the poem I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (also sometimes called Daffodils) penned by the English romantic poet.
Taking part in a session titled ‘Seeding a New Cinema – the Legacy of Shyam Benegal’ at the 13th Kolkata Literary Meet (Kalam) here, Kapur, 61, continued, “Metaphorically, he is my Sooraj Ka Satva Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun), who brings balance. I cannot label him”.
Incidentally, Sooraj Ka Satwa Ghoda is a 1992 Hindi film helmed by Benegal, where Kapoor made his film debut.
Besides Kapur, star actor Shabana Azmi – also a conspicuous part of many of Benegal’s films- shed light on the visionary director and his persona, and narrated stories about his keen observation of everyday lives during the absorbing winter afternoon session on the Alipore Agri- Horticultural Gardens lawns.
Benegal, a trailblazer of parallel cinema and one of the most influential auteurs to emerge in the post-1970s cinematic landscape, passed away on December 23, 2024.
Azmi, 74, recalling her profound memories with the director, called him her “Guru, a mentor, a guiding light”.
“I often turned to him when I was confused, but above all, he was my friend, and he was the one who gave me that privilege of space. Though he wouldn’t want to be anybody’s Guru I would insist that it is what he was to me because not only for the experience of working with him in my first film, it was travelling with him,” said Azmi.
Azmi stressed the term “collaborator” while describing Benegal, whose sets were nothing less than a big family, where not only the actors, but even the crew members, and the technicians, were equally important to him.
Adding to this, Kapur remarked, “When I stepped out of Shyam’s set, it hit me how his sets made everyone feel wanted, like a big family. There was no A, B, C category in his dictionary.”
For the unversed, Rajit Kapur went on to work with Bengal in “Bose: The Unforgotten Hero”, “Mammo” and many more. Azmi played some iconic characters in Benegal’s creations like the downtrodden Laxmi in “Ankur” and ageing brothel madame Rukmini Bai in “Mandi”, which, she
feels, shaped both her “aesthetics” and career in the film industry.
