Long before motor-mouths took over television, there was a lovely and incredibly amiable Tabassum, host of India’s first-ever talk show — ‘Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan”. As she breathed her last following a cardiac arrest on Friday, one remembers her as a ray of sunshine in whose gracious presence stars shone even brighter. Living up to her name, which means smile, she brought great joy to her celebrity guests and millions of fans of her show, which was telecast on Doordarshan for 21 years between 1972 and 1993. Bollywood stars yearned to be on her show.
Her journey began as a child actor. Known as Baby Tabassum, she starred in movies such as “Nargis”, “Mera Suhaag”, “Manjhdhar” and “Bari Behen” in the late 1940s. Besides her successful stint as a star host on television, she wrote joke books and was also the editor of a Hindi women’s magazine “Grihalaxmi” for 15 years. In 1985, she directed, produced and wrote her first film “Tum Par Hum Qurban”. In 2015, she launched her own channel on YouTube, “Tabassum Talkies”.
