Soliloquy

It is with immense sadness that one notes the passing of two stalwarts of India – former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh (born 1932) and filmmaker Shyam Benegal (born 1934) – this past week. One could not have been a thinking Indian without having had the influence of either of these two gifted individuals in their lives, and one hopes and prays for their respective souls to attain peace.

While Dr Singh served two terms as India’s thirteenth prime minister, Mr Benegal was renowned for etching parallel cinema into the minds of the hoi-polloi, and combining commercial success with artistic ardour. Dr Singh enjoyed massive popular support during his time in New Delhi, but his ministers did not, and the rampant corruption that took place in his second term eventually led to him being ousted in 2014.

Dr Singh will, quite appropriately, be remembered as a better finance minister than prime minister given that he essayed the role of the former with aplomb under the guidance of his mentor PV Narasimha Rao. What every schoolboy and girl in India knows by heart is that Dr Singh is the reason why India embraced liberalisation in 1991 and enjoys the soft power it does today internationally.

Very little needs to be said about Mr Benegal, although every Hyderabadi will feel a shred of gloom at his passing, living quietly as he did for the first 25 years of his life in Tirumalagiri. Ankur, Nishant, Manthan and Mandi are but a few examples of his genius, with the latter portraying his home city in a light few had taken care to enlighten themselves upon, or even chosen to open their eyes towards.

Both these gentlemen reflected an era in which India was a liberal land in which ideas and movements both flowed freely, and without any restraint. A nation that took pride in its diversity, culture and interred customs gave birth to such men who commanded the respect of every room they walked into, without quite having to speak. Their actions did all the talking.

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