Shyam Benegal’s Genius: Unveiling the Trials Behind Manthan and His Wit-Filled Memories

The Indian film industry mourns the loss of Shyam Benegal, a maestro whose legacy is adorned with cinematic treasures. His passing on Monday leaves an irreplaceable void in Indian cinema. Among his celebrated works, Manthan (1976) shines as a standout masterpiece. However, its journey to completion was anything but smooth.

In an exclusive conversation with Indian Express a few months ago, Benegal reminisced about the making of Manthan, highlighting the challenges faced during its production. “Everything was recorded on the spot, it was sync shooting. But the funny part of it was that we were not prepared for any of that when we went there to shoot,” he recalled. “We were shooting with a camera which was very noisy, so we had to make a mattress to lodge the camera in so it wouldn’t make so much sound. One thing or the other kept happening, it was like reinventing photography. It was quite ridiculous, the way we were working when we were shooting.”

The film, starring Smita Patil, Girish Karnad, Naseeruddin Shah, and Amrish Puri, delves into the White Revolution in India. Known for his candidness, Benegal revealed his apprehensions about working with Naseeruddin Shah during that time. “Half the time I was very worried about him because he used to smoke a lot of weed at that time and I used to get very worried whether he is going to do his work properly or not, whether he is going to fly off the handle.”

The filmmaker also shared quirky anecdotes from the production, including the unique wardrobe rules. “Naseer and Smita were asked to wear the same costumes for all the shoot days, without changing. Naseer took it quite literally, he never changed. He was in the same clothes from the day he started shooting till the day he finished. Smita, although she wore the same clothes, was very diligent about washing them. She had two sets of clothes so she would wear one and wash one, things used to dry pretty quickly.”

Filming in Sanganva, a remote village in Gujarat’s Rajkot district, posed its own set of challenges. With the nearest town 50 miles away, the cast and crew adapted to a self-sufficient lifestyle. “So what used to happen was that we were staying there as a kind of self-contained unit,” Benegal recounted. “We were cooking for ourselves, we stayed in two houses and one of those houses was owned by the man who owned the Royal Opera House in Bombay. There were about three bedrooms in it and a big hall so we could all put our bedding down and go to sleep at night. We would roll them up in the morning and double it as our workspace. We stayed like we were camping. We were like that for about 45-50 days so we got used to that except the winters, they were dreadful. During the day we would be beset by flies and you had to keep the flies out and burn incense sticks to keep them away so we could shoot (laughs).”

Despite these adversities, Manthan emerged as a milestone in Indian cinema, a testament to Shyam Benegal’s resilience and creative brilliance.