Manthan, more than a film

I grew up around Shyam Benegalmdasha close friend of my family he headed the film department at an ad agency my dad ran in the 60s called ASP Advertising and Sales Promotionbut features were in his DNA his true callingIndian cinema in the 70s was primarily ldquomasala Bollywood slantedrdquo escapist by nature what was referred to as ldquoleave your brains at homerdquo type of ldquofillumsrdquomdasha more serious alternate cinema like a todayrsquos Lapataa Ladies or a 12th Fail hadnrsquot blossomed yet Anything that wasnrsquot ldquonaachgaanardquo and ldquodishoom dishoomrdquo became ldquoronadhonardquo but it did form the seeds of a powerful Parallel cinema The movement Irsquod say had a foundermdashShri Shyam Benegalmdashsans a second layer of comfort like the present day OTT system you were lucky as a directorproducer to get a morning show at Eros or screenings at the erstwhile Akashwani theatreForeign film festivals were always welcoming of Indian cinema Benegal and the other members of the Parallel cinema movement like Saeed Mirza Gautam Ghosh and Ketan Mehta had to find innovative ways to raise the ldquomoolahrdquo to make their films occasionally NFDC financed or kind donors who knew ldquoReturn on Investmentrdquo was a lotteryShyam Babu as he came to be known was always the other guymdashhe lived an urban life but his concerns were rural And always deeply human Manthan was a passion project hersquod made Ankur before this but a story about the dairy farmers of Gujarat set amidst the backdrop of the White Revolution was ambitiousmdashShyam and Vijay Tendulkar wrote a fictitious story about the milk cooperative movement of Dr Verghese Kurienmdashhe took it to Dr Verghese Kurien Irsquom not sure of what transpired between the two men but this Irsquom sure ofmdashDr Kurien conceived the most outofthe box idea in an era of no box office certainty In what was Indiarsquos first crowd funded film Dr Kurien got 5 lakh dairy farmers to contribute R2 each and Shyam Benegal had his finances in placeThe film was a massive success winning the National Award for Best Feature Film in 1977 as well as being Indiarsquos Foreign Film entry I watched the newly restored 4K version of this 1976 nugget of gold last night having first seen it as a 14year old My focus was on a young Naseeruddin Shah he was and still is our Anthony Hopkins in his chameleonlike abilitiesmdashthere wasnrsquot a second that he veered from Bhola the local Harijan leader Directors like Shyam and Sai Paranjape Sparsh Ketan Mehta Mirch Masala and Saeed Mirza Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai and early Vidhu Vinod Chopra Kundan Shah Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron Gautam Ghose Paar Rabindra Darmaraj Chakra and Vishal Bhardwaj later Maqbool all saw in him one qualitymdashhe could be anything they wanted him to be and then someIrsquod wager that most of them saw him as their muse remarkable putty in their hands an exponent of their experiments so too Smita Patil these two had that ability to inhabit any characterThese maverick directors wishing to make their points mostly political the aesthetic often sacrificed to accommodate the anger had a bunch of amazing NSDFTII actors to choose from Naseer Smita Om Puri Amrish Puri and Shabana AzmiThese directors were shooting at a time when digital cameras werenrsquot invented yet the Govind Nihalanis of the world shooting their frames using 16mm cameras Having made a feature film this year Irsquove truly understood how hard the process is and these men back in 1976 worked in an analog eraManthan was back at Cannes in its newly restored form last week still as fresh and fulfilling as ever Manthan a story that needs to be told even today after all ldquothe churningrdquo will continue foreverRahul daCunha is an adman theatre directorplaywright photographer and traveller Reach him at rahuldacunhamiddaycom