Guru Dutt said working with him won’t get me anywhere: Benegal

TIL Desk Bollywood/ When Shyam Benegal first came to Mumbai looking for work in the film industry, he met his cousin legendary filmmaker Guru Dutt, who advised him to start off on his own rather than be an assistant to him. Bengal said having a director like Dutt in the family was a huge inspiration for him to leave Hyderabad, and come to Mumbai in the hope of making a film here.

“Having Guru Dutt as a cousin was a great advantage. Not that he helped me, but it was a kind of goal. Because he was a film director, it meant I could also be a film director,” Benegal told reporters here last evening. When he quit his job in Hyderabad, Benegal reached Mumbai and headed to meet the “Pyaasa” helmer.

“When I went to meet Guru Dutt, he said, ‘Listen, what are you going to do with me? You will be an assistant and would get no opportunity to do anything else. You will just be a ‘gofor’. “In film line, a ‘gofor’ is a ‘go for this go for that’ person. Which means you won’t really get to do anything except run errands for me,” the 81-year-old director said.