Ila Arun fondly remembers Shyam Benegal, calls him “Bheeshma Pitamah of parallel cinema”

The prolific singer-actress Ila Arun’s association with Shyam Benegal was long and rewarding. “Mandi was released in 1982, so you can count the years,” she said. “I was almost in all his ventures and I was not there sometimes, but I was always connected with him, always. He was a very humble person, we all called him Encyclopaedia. I was a part of his repertory, and literally he groomed everybody by his talking style, by his knowledge about history, not history of only India, the world, and his knowledge about food, and fashion.”She added, “He was in this industry for so long! He started as ad filmmaker at Lintas, and then he started making so many films. He was an internationally acclaimed director, and as we call him, the Bheeshma Pitamah of Parallel Cinema. Through his cinema, he brought a new kind of awareness about our society, and working with him was a treat. One got to see farmers, dacoits, weavers staying with him for 45 days and more. He has given all of us an extended family. Whoever was shooting with him became a part of his shooting family. Whether it is commercial cinema or not, wherever the actors came from, their love and respect was the same. He individually was connected to everybody.”Ila Arun finds it difficult to explain her affinity to Shyam Babu. “I had a lot, a lot, a lot of affection from my side,” she said. “I loved him. I am going to miss him. He never seemed to have reached his 90s. I connected with his for his way of speaking, his laughter, his knowledge was just like any young person, he would give energy to us all. We will miss him. There is going to be a vacuum within all of us who worked with him.”She added, “It is easy to become a director, and it is easy to talk intellectually. But his connectivity, not only with the subject, but with the actors.... and he trusted his actors, and he gave them space to improvise, to bring their own perception also. Kulbhushan (Kharbanda), Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Shabana (Azmi), Smita (Patil), he gave everyone a chance to act openly in their own way. So the workshop that we did with Shyam Babu, the first workshop of the play, was not a workshop, it was an interactive reading. Shyam Babu used to take our input, and as a director, when he didn't like it, he used to say to you, ‘No, no, this is not working’, but otherwise he used to take input.”Ila has an interesting story on how she got to be part of Benegal’s Welcome To Sajjanpur. She said, “I was called for a day's shooting, but when I gave him my input, he liked it so much, that he gave me space, and I could contribute, and people felt my presence so strongly, that I got an award. Working with him was like coming home. I used to tell him, keep me in every film, whether you make me a clapper boy, or put me in a costume.... I really liked being around him, rest in peace Shyam Babu.”Also Read: Victor Banerjee on working with Shyam Benegal in Arohan, “He allowed me to actually become an electrician”