Is it significant or simply ironic that Govardhan Asrani’s career began by working with names like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mani Kaul and Ritwik Ghatak? Mani Kaul was a friend at a Rajasthan college in the early 1960s when they both applied for the newly opened Film Institute at Poona (now FTII, Pune). But even then, they were both being tutored in their respective disciplines: while Kaul was learning direction and screenwriting, Asrani was being coached in acting.

Asrani wasn’t a stranger to the performing arts: when he was younger, he was a voice actor in radio, appearing with enough regularity for him to be paid a salary. When Asrani was shortlisted for Pune, his father was miffed: why did the boy want to abandon a secured gig in broadcasting for something unknown?

But truth be told, Asr

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