The New Wave in Hindi cinema brought its own surge of new hope. Shyam Benegal could be justly called the father of New Wave Cinema in the 1970s. Prolific in his output, Shyam Babu, as he is affectionately and reverently known, hasn’t stopped making films with social relevance that touches a deep chord in the human heart.

A feudal mindset

Ankur, his directorial debut, remains to this day his most searing indictment of oppression set within an extended feudal system in Andhra Pradesh, where the Zamindari system is gone. Zamindars are no more. Though abolished, the feudal mindset lives on. Carrying forward the tradition of cinema set in the poverty of the Indian heartland, Ankur took forward the feudal fable of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen, though the language used to convey the sharp-cutting contours of socio-economic oppression in Ankur is far removed from the way Ray and Roy envisaged it.

Benegal turns the parable on poverty and subjugation into a sexually charged tale of lust, jealousy, insecurity, and brutality in a village of Hyderabad. The camera (Govind Nihalani) follows the rituals of the Andhra village closely. Ankur is rooted to the Andhra soil. That is why, initially, Benegal wanted Waheeda Rehman to play Laxmi. The fact that the role finally went to Shabana Azmi is providential.

Seduction, subjugation, and exploitation

The story of Laxmi (Shabana Azmi)’s incredibly doughty efforts to look after her deaf-and-mute husband, Kishtayya (Sadhu Meher), and the sexual dynamics that evolve as she gets intimate with her employer, the Zamindar’s educated son Surya (Anant Nag), are woven into the rites and wrongs of the small Andhra village. We see the principal plot—the seduction, subjugation, and exploitation of Laxmi by Surya—in relation to other happenings in the village. For example, a village woman is dragged to the panchayat for refusing to stay with her husband. When reminded that the husband had provided her with ample amenities and food, the woman retorts, “Bhookh sirf pet ki nahin hoti hai,” drawing attention to her husband’s impotency.

In contrast, Laxmi’s deaf-and-mute husband is perfectly capable of providing her with every kind of sustenance. Yet, after being humiliated by Surya, Kishtayya leaves the village and his wife to fend for herself. The coast is cleared for an adulterous liaison between Laxmi and Surya. Interestingly, there’s no coercion involved. Once Laxmi is rendered spouseless, she knows her best option is to become the Zamindar’s mistress.

The dynamics in the cozy village home of the Zamindar change radically when Surya’s child-bride, Saru (Priya Tendulkar), arrives and takes charge. Laxmi is first marginalized in the household and then banished, with the approval of Surya, who is a curious blend of masculine arrogance and spousal cowardice.

Anant Nag and Sadhu Meher turn in perfectly pitched performances as the Zamindar and the husband. Sadhu, so effortlessly empathetic as the husband, won the National Award for Best Actor. But the film finally belongs to Shabana Azmi. From the protective wife of an economically and physically weak husband to a deserted woman who with her employee for self-preservation, to finally the oppressed underdog whose voice rises in protest against gender tyranny and social inequality, Shabana owns the role of Laxmi.

No wonder Satyajit Ray had commented, “In two high-pitched scenes, she pulls out all stops and firmly establishes herself as one of our finest dramatic actresses.”

The two scenes Ray refers to both occur in the film’s culminating portions when Laxmi’s husband walks back into her life. Shabana’s breakdown on seeing him is gut-wrenching. So is her final rant of protest against the powerful man who slept with her and beat up her husband out of guilt and fear. Ankur remains a searing, pain-lashed comment on social inequality with a career-defining performance by Shabana Azmi. The eyebrows apart.

Shabana Azmi, the tsunami

Shyam Benegal’s Ankur started the tsunami in Indian cinema known as Shabana Azmi. Technically, this was not her debut film. K.A. Abbas’ Faasla was released 11 months earlier. But it was Ankur which plonked Shabana at the center of Indian cinema’s new wave.

Shabana was the fifth choice after Waheeda Rehman, Sharda, Anju Mahendroo, and Aparna Sen. The incomparable Azmi again played the character of a woman who conceives another man’s child during her husband’s absence in Kalpana Lajmi’s Ek Pal. Lajmi is related to Shyam Benegal. Shabana, to this day, cringes at her tweezed eyebrows that she kept for her role as Laxmi in Ankur. The film was shot in the same village where the actual incident on which the film is based had occurred.

Shabana Azmi, Sadhu Meher, and Anant Nag, all new to the movie camera, were brought in to play out a triangular drama where the peasantry gets the kind of sensitive, heartbreaking treatment that Satyajit Ray and Bimal Roy had earlier attempted in Pather Panchali and Do Bigha Zameen.