He gave Indian cinema a new voice

Shyam Benegal, one of India's greatest directors, died on Monday, leaving behind a body of work that will be remembered for its breadth of vision, compassion for the marginalised, intellectual acuity, and a deep humanity.

Benegal was the pioneer of the movement known as parallel cinema, and his work is a thoughtful and nuanced examination of the nation in the decades following Independence. He was a champion of the dispossessed, giving the voiceless a voice and telling their story with intelligence, honesty and kindness. Cinema, for Benegal, had a purpose - not a didactic one, but one that engaged with the real in profoundly moving ways.

Born in 1934 in Trimulgherry, a cantonment in Secunderabad, Benegal grew up in a family with strong political leanings. There were cousins who were communists, who belonged to Netaji's Forward Bloc, or to the RSS. He was exposed to a lot of contrarian and passionate views. Yet, his great love was cinema. He made friends with the projectionist of the local Garrison Cinema, and watched all the new releases from the projectionist's window. He recalled cinema as a deeply immersive medium, and at 10 decided that he would be a filmmaker. So, he would scratch little figures on the celluloid he got from the projectionist and played them on the magic lantern. At 12, he made his first film with his father's 16mm camera, Chuttiyon Mein Mauz Maza.

Benegal grew up in a time of tremendous political turmoil. As a student at Nizam's College, he read voraciously, took active part in theatre, and was the editor of the college magazine. He was also in the middle of the violent altercations that broke out during the fraught issue of Hyderabad's relationship with India immediately after Independence. For a man like Benegal in a time of social, political, and cultural upheaval, cinema was always going to be serious business. He could have started under his cousin Guru Dutt, but he had a young man's idealistic disapproval of commercial cinema. If he couldn't make films such as Elia Kazan and Vittorio De Sica, he wouldn't make films at all.