India, Dec. 23 -- Christmas was a few days away when Shyam Sundar Benegal - who became popular as Shyam Benegal - was born in Hyderabad. And it was two days away when he breathed his last, in 2024. Benegal was posthumously honoured last year by the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) for his humanistic, progressive and socially conscious work, which IPTA held as being in the spirit of its ideals, akin to those of the iconic Urdu/Hindi writer Premchand.

I would like to record a biographical fact about Benegal that perhaps remains largely unknown - a fact that adds to the dimension of his versatility. It is his work in Mumbai's (once Bombay) English theatre as a make-up artist who even designed masks - that is worth knowing. Coincid...