The cinema ecosystem Shyam Benegal created

Shyam Benegal was a dreamer. Because he dreamt, many others found the conviction to walk the path that was different from the norm.

- Kunal Ray

I think many cinema lovers would agree that one of the most memorable scenes of Indian cinema is the small child chucking a stone at the landlord's window at the end of Ankur, Shyam Benegal's directorial debut. In the context of the film, this gesture could be read as a mark of protest where the oppressed are finally beginning to act against the oppressor. I think the chucking of the stone was also the filmmaker's symbolic protest against the dominant mainstream Bombay cinema of that time with which he had to contend all along to tell the stories that he believed in.

Shyam Benegal planted a seedling/ankur with his debut of a different storytelling sensibility in Hindi cinema and sustained that spirit in the numerous other films that he made. I use "storyteller" consciously because that's what he did—tell stories that mainstream Hindi cinema had no interest in, whether it was Mammo, Bhumika, Zubeida, Manthan, Nishant, Kalyug, or Welcome to Sajjanpur amongst many other memorable films that he went on to create and leave behind for cine lovers to discuss and dissect as a testament of the times that were. Here I see a direct influence and correlation with Satyajit Ray, a filmmaker he greatly admired.