Shyam Benegal Recalls Manthan Shoot: ‘I Was Worried About Naseeruddin Shah's Heavy Smoking'

Nearly half a century since its original release, the classic film Manthan has been meticulously restored and is primed for a special theatrical re-run. This comes after the celebrated cast enjoyed a red-carpet world premiere at the recent Cannes Film Festival, where the film was showcased alongside masterpieces by Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, and Wim Wenders. Director Shyam Benegal expressed his delight, recalling some memories of Naseeruddin Shah smoking on the set.

The esteemed director, now 89, did not attend the Cannes premiere but shared some memorable instances during an interview with the Indian Express. He recounted, “Of Naseer… 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. But when I see the film (today) it is all in one piece and that’s what amazes me, really.”

“Then Naseer and Smita, they 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. I think I met that child (who was in the film). He is grown up and has children of his own, probably on to getting a grandchild. I remember him coming to see me in the office. I didn’t know who he was and he told me he was from the film,” he added.

Manthan, directed by iconic parallel filmmaker Shyam Benegal released in 1976 and was inspired by the pioneering milk cooperative movement of Verghese Kurien. The movie was unique as the production of the film was entirely crowd-funded by 5,00,000 farmers who donated Rs 2 each. It won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi and Best Screenplay for Vijay Tendulkar.

The film was also India’s official entry to the 1976 Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The title song Mero Gaam Katha Parey, sung by Preeti Sagar, was later used as the soundtrack for Amul’s television advertisements.