Naseeruddin Shah credits Shyam Benegal for his first pay check.
Naseeruddin Shah credits Shyam Benegal for his first pay check. 
Legendary filmmaker Shyam Benegal looked upon as one of the greatest visionaries in Indian cinema departed from the ‘mortal’ world to the ‘immortal’ world at the age of 90.
He breathed his last at Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital where he had been undergoing treatment for chronic kidney disease.
In his career spanning decades, the filmmaker worked with the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amrish Puri, Girish Karnad, and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, among others. One of his most notable collaborations was with Naseeruddin.
In an old interview, Naseeruddin spoke highly of the filmmaker who launched him into mainstream cinema by casting him in his 1975 movie Nishant.
The actor in a media interaction revealed that the most memorable thing for him was that he(Benegal) gave him his first film and his(Naseeruddin) first pay cheque.
But what was significant on Shyam was that he opened the doors for a number of filmmakers who wanted to make films that they believed in. He still continued to make the kind of films he believed in and never jumped the bandwagon. Naseeruddin feels extremely privileged and proud to be part of his work.
He went in to add that, the fact is, he broke through the market of monolithic multi starrer films, making small films without bigger stars and managed to communicate to the audience well.
He was able to connect to a larger group.
Shyam Benegal and Naseeruddin Shah also worked together in Manthan, Junoon, Mandi and Trikal, among others.
News Edit KV Raman
