JYOTHI VENKATESH pays a rich tribute to his departed journalist friend SHYAM SHARMA of Mayapuri weekly
Shyam Sharma who was associated with Mayapuri weekly right from 1980 on a regular basis breathed his last just yesterday in St George hospital at VT where he had been admitted after he also became a victim of the novel coronavirus during the pandemic which has affected every one all over the world. Shyam is survived by his daughter Deepti Naidu and his two cute grandchildren. He passed away at the young age of just around 65 after suffering from prolonged bouts of illness including two visits to the hospital but it was Covid 19 which played the villain and snatched away a gentle soul like him away from us.
I miss you my dear friend Shyam, because we used to meet each other at most of the press conferences and press shows held in Mumbai before the dreaded pandemic set in. We used to often fight with each other, because though he was junior to me, he used to lose his temper occasionally and admonish me whenever I tried to ask questions to film stars like say Vidya Balan or Sridevi or Vikram or Jaya Prada during the group interviews that the PROs used to organize and I used to fight back with him and tell him that I would have spoken to the actors in Hindi only if they did not know English or preferred to reply only in Hindi like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sunil Grover and not to those who were well versed in English like say Jacqueline Fernandez or Katrina Kaif. Often I used to chide him to try to learn English and surprise me by talking to me in English like I had learnt Hindi way back in the 70’s when I became a journalist because the more the languages a journalist knows the better it for him to excel in his profession, I used to tell him and he used to scoff at me.
Shyam was a master at whatever he was doing, whether it was journalism or even acting. In fact the first time I had met him was when he was assisting director Joginder Shelly on the sets of serials which he was directing. I happened to work on the sets of one of his TV serials at that time and it was Shyam who was working there on the sets as an assistant and his job was to fetch me from the make up room and give me the sheets of dialogues for me every day. Joginder Shelly’s wife Sushama also was a journalist and it was she who had asked me to get in touch with her husband to work in his serial and that’s how I had landed the job way back in the 70’s. Alas today neither is Sushama alive nor Joginder. Shyam was very meticulous as an assistant on the sets too and even occasionally used to teach me the nuances of the language whenever I used to go wrong with my diction or delivery since my mother tongue is Tamil.
I used to tease Shyam for his long winded questions during the interviews and tell him that by the time his question used to end, I would have completed the entire interview, because he used to add his own bit of knowledge to all the questions. Like Aap ko to pata hi hoga ki Mother India , India ki behtareen filmon mein ek hai lekin aap ka personal favorite kaunsi film hai. I used to admonish him bhai, kyon footage khate ho zara edit karo na apne question? Sometimes when he was not invited for a press show, he used to call me up and scold me for not informing him about the press show since the PR person had forgotten to invite. In fact, he did not know how to be a diplomat and used to fight with the poor pr persons by barging in at the press show and taking them to task for daring to forget him when the invitations were being sent by whatsapp or for that matter sms.
By virtue of the fact that he used to maintain a good relationship with most of the stars and producers in the film industry, Shyam Sharma used to also dabble in freelance PR besides journalism and always Shyam used to make it a point to invite me to whichever press interviews he was organising as a pr person and see to it that I got undivided attention from the artiste for an exclusive interview even though he was also writing regularly for Mayapuri, because he was aware of the fact that we were not professional enemies but friends who were writing for the same publication. I too on my part always used to make it a point not to send in my dispatches of the coverages of these events where Shyam was also present.
Just a week back, Shyam had called me up to inform me that he had shifted from his Andheri residence to his own flat in Malad (W). I was happy that Shyam was shifting from Andheri to his own house in Malad since I am staying in Charkop which is near Malad. Earlier, after he had shifted from Colaba to Andheri, Shyam was staying at a flat which is owned by his lyricist friend Sudhakar Sharma. I remember that Shyam and I discussed about the plight in which we are in , with print medium almost closing down and papers not paying us like they used to pay before the lockdown and both of us hoped that things will improve and we will be able to see a better future soon, but today he is no more. I am still reeling under the impact of the news of his death all of a sudden and cannot even believe that the person who used to ring me up every Friday after watching a film to discuss the pros and cons of every film before he used to dash off his reviews is no more amidst us today. For his bouts of anger, sometimes I used to affectionately call him names like Taoji and Durvasa but he used to forget his anger after a few minutes and once again become his jovial smiling self. I WILL MISS YOU MY DEAR FRIEND FOREVER!