'I Feel Like I Have Lost My Father Again'

'After Om's untimely demise, he would call us every Sunday for the next two years to ask, "How are you doing my dear? How's the young fella?"'

Nandita Puri grew up on Shyam Benegal's Doordarshan series Bharat Ek Khoj.

After marrying actor Om Puri, his mentor became a father figure to her, her son Ishaan's grandfather, and the family encyclopedia.

Gutted that she couldn't spend his 90th birthday with him, she tells Rediff.com Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya, "The best tribute we can pay him is to frequently show his films and make his Bharat Ek Khoj a part of the syllabus in every school, college and university across India."

The matchless gift

I still remember Shyambabu's wedding gift to Om and me.

We had been meaning to meet for a few weeks when suddenly, he called and invited us home.

His wife Nira and daughter Pia were not in town, but he cooked Om's favourite alu tuk himself, along with delicious mutton raan, which he cut and served us himself.

He was my late husband's lifelong mentor who had known him when Om didn't know what his next meal would be, or even if it was coming.

On Shyambabu's sets, everyone ate together. On occasions, he would take Om, Shabana (Azmi) and a few others to a restaurant for a meal, introducing my husband who was a vegetarian then to fish at Amber restaurant in Kolkata.

In Paris, he taught Om which wines to pair with which dish.

Om used to drink Old Monk for the longest time, it was Shyambabu who slowly shifted him from rum to Teacher's and then Single Malt.

Whenever Om got a bottle of liquor for him from trips abroad, he would buy one for himself as well to taste.

The family encyclopedia

Shyambabu was my teacher as well and I remember, in the late 1980s, running to the television to watch his Bharat Ek Khoj on Doordarshan as soon as I heard the signature tune.

The 53-episode television series based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book Discovery of India gave our history a human face.

Om, who was the sutradhar and also played several roles, including Ashoka and Aurangzeb, would later tell me how Shyambabu meticulously recreated the period and if even one man stood out from the time on his set at Film City Studio, no matter how far he was, his hawk eyes would immediately spot him.

He had the largest collections of VHS and DVDs in his personal library, cult classics from Akira Kurosawa to Satyajit Ray, and would ask me to send our chauffeur across for any film I wanted to watch.

That's how I got to see a lot of Shyambabu's own work too which was not readily available then, including a three-part biographical film on Nehru which he had directed for the Films Division.

If I didn't understand something or wanted to know more, I would call him and he would patiently explain it to me.

Even when we had to go somewhere for a vacation, he was our go-to person for information on travel, sights, food and even what clothes to pack.

He soon came to be called the 'family encyclopedia'.

I still remember when we were planning a trip to Prague and wanted to know something, my son immediately quipped, 'Ask encyclopedia.'

The Sunday call

Ishaan called him Shyambabu too.

Never having known his own, he was like my son's grandfather.

When he was around five-six months old and would suddenly start crying while we were at lunch or dinner at his home, Shyambabu would tell me to continue eating and carrying Ishaan around, trying to distract him.

After Om's untimely demise, he would call us every Sunday for the next two years to ask, 'How are you doing, my dear? How's the young fella?'

It was his way of subtly checking on us.

When Ishaan refused to do his graduation after completing high school, I sent him to Shyambabu and I don't know what he told him, but my son returned home saying he had decided to study economics.

I was relieved but also surprised because my son was a liberal arts student.

Why economics, I wondered, and was told that had been Shyambabu's subject.

Ishaan went to the London School of Economics and was a global topper in Development Management.

The Susman Story

It was Shyambabu's idea to start the Om Puri Foundation to carry my husband's legacy forward.

He was the founder trustee of the Foundation, and later, with advancing age, an advisor.

The Foundation organised a session on his 1987 film, Susman, which was on the struggles of rural handloom weavers who lose almost 80 per cent of their earnings to the middlemen.

Shyambabu shared stories from the film on The Susman Story and about Om who plays Ramulu on whom the film is based.

While the rest of the unit stayed in Hyderabad, Om stayed in Ramulu's village, in his house, and learnt how to weave from him.

He wove dupattas for his co-star Shabana Azmi and writer Shama Zaida, a rumaal for Ila Arun and shirts for Shyambabu and himself.

In fact, he got married wearing that shirt.

During the session, Shyambabu asked me if I had seen Susman.

I had and it's one of his finest socially relevant films, films with a purpose, along with Manthan on the 'white revolution', Aarohan on the sorry plight of farmers and Mandi which, while entertaining and fun, throws light on politics and prostitution.

He asked me if I had a copy of the film, confiding with a sheepish smile that he didn't.

When Om was chairperson of the NFDC, I had managed to get copies of all his films and burnt a copy of Susman, giving Shyambabu his own film for his personal library.

We presented the Om Puri Karigar Award to the children of weavers and craftsmen, and the Om Puri Kaisan Award to the children of farmers.

It was an incentive to encourage them to use the digital and social media to edit out the exploitative middlemen from their lives and continue with the family legacy instead of moving to the cities and a new profession.

It's a life lesson we have learnt from Shyambabu's films, Susman and Arohan, both featuring Om as an impoverished weaver and a destitute farmer, how important it is to conserve our rich cultural heritage and farming tradition.

The bottle of Single Malt remains packed

Shyambabu had been ailing from kidney-related problems for the last couple of years and initially, dialysis had left him drained and frail.

But then, he adjusted to the tri-weekly routine and was doing well, though he would say that if he had to go every day for dialysis, he wouldn't want to live.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the days when he wasn't in hospital, he would be at his office by 10.30 am, leaving for lunch around 1.30 pm, be back in a couple of hours and stay till 5 pm, picking up every call, be it on the landline or his cellphone, and attending to every matter himself.

He made his last film, an epic biographical, Mujib: The Making of a Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father and first president of Bangladesh at the age of 87-88.

He spoke to me himself when I called to tell him that I couldn't be at his 90th birthday celebrations on December 14 because my uncle was also turning 90, but we agreed to meet me at his office on December 11 at 11.30 am.

I told him I would bring a cake and a bottle of Single Malt.

Ila Arun, who wanted to present him a copy of her autobiography, and Ishaan, were to accompany me.

But a day before, I got a call from his office informing me that he was not keeping well.

The meeting was rescheduled to December 30. But after his birthday celebrations, his health took a downturn, and with still a week to go, his office called to cancel again.

Both Ila and I were worried, but I was definitely not prepared for the worst.

I lost my father when I was 11. I feel I have lost him again.

The bottle of Single Malt is still packed.

A letter for Ishaan

It's been a year of huge losses.

On October 9, we lost Ratan Tata, the face of our industry.

On December 15, we lost Zakir Hussain, the face of our music.

On December 23, we lost Shyam Benegal, the face of our cinema.

He wasn't just a film-maker. After Satyajit Ray, Shyambabu was truly India's Renaissance Man.

The best tribute we can pay him is to frequently showcase his films and make his Bharat Ek Khoj a part of the syllabus in every school, college and university across India.