Iconic auteur Shyam Benegal dies aged 90

Director Shyam Benegal who created a new idiom for Hindi cinema and was one of the leading figures of the parallel cinema movement, died in Mumbai on Monday evening from kidney-related complications, his daughter Pia Benegal told the news agency Press Trust of India.

- Meena Iyer

He was 90. Benegal, who was filmmaker Guru Dutt's cousin, started his career as an ad filmmaker before going on to make genre-defining films such as Ankur, Manthan, Mandi, Nishant, Junoon among others. He launched the careers of Shabana Azmi, and Smita Patil (in her first break as leading lady). A host of brilliant actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Sadhu Meher who would have otherwise been lost in the tinsel of Bollywood, found their metier working for Benegal through the 1970s and the 1980s. In response to a question about how he defined his kind of films, Benegal told in an interview last year, "I hate the term middle of the road cinema. I would say my cinema appeals to the urban, middle-class literate audience who does not need to be spoon-fed."