JYOTHI VENKATESH PAYS A TRIBUTE TO THE SENIOR JOURNALIST WHO DIED YESTERDAY IN KOLAR
Shaheen Raj a reputed and senior film journalist and also PR died on 27th October in Kolar near Bengaluru at the age of 69. Though he was regularly writing for the popular trade weekly Complete Cinema edited and published by Atul Mohan till the pandemic struck us, Shaheen Raj was also associated with the paper Shaam Se Shaam Tak in Bengaluru ever since he shifted there from Mumbai from 2005 onwards. Shaam Se Shaam Tak was an Urdu evening newspaper owned by Rizwan Asad. Though Shaheen was an experienced journalist from Mumbai, since 2005 he was closely associated with Rizwan Asad and he had a regular film column in Nasheman English online edition.
A known journalist in Bollywood, Shaheen had interviewed almost all the film stars and celebrities and you can log on to nasheman.in to read his articles. For the past two years he was unwell and was bedridden and he shifted base to Kolar Apna Ghar where he breathed his last. Inna lillahi wa Inna illahi rajioon. May Allah grant him the highest place in Jannat. His sad demise is indeed a great loss to journalism especially to the family of Nasheman news as well as Complete Cinema and last but not the least to me, as I had known him for over 45 years when he was in Mumbai. Little did I realize that my last visit to Shaheen Raaj when the Bengaluru International film festival was on in 2020 was my last chance to see him alive.
Shaheen Raaj
Shaheen lost his left leg to gangrene and his leg had to be amputated almost 20 years ago in Mumbai, thanks to the generous help by the late singer par excellence Jagjit Singh who called me to his house when I requested him to help Shaheen in his operation and doled out to me hard cash of 15,000 rupees. When I had offered to Jagjit to sign to the effect that he had given me the cash, he scolded me and said that he had confidence that I would not misuse my relationship with him and see to it that the money went to Shaheen’s operation.
Shaheen used to write for an International monthly called Videostyle when I was the Mumbai correspondent for the magazine way back in the 80’’s and used to see that he was paid for his articles. Shaheen was also writing for Film City, a weekly being brought out by Surendra Gupta and in fact Shaheen even was keen on shifting back to Mumbai when he came to know that Surendra Gupta was planning to start his own orphanage on the outskirts of Mumbai, because Shaheen had become very homesick in Bengaluru.
Shaheen Raaj used to religiously cover the International Film Festival of India year after year at Goa. We used to travel by air-conditioned sleeper bus all the way from Mumbai to Goa year after year and what’s more even share the same room at Hotel Trimurti in Panjim during the tenure of the film festival for the last several years without fail till I was asked to edit the daily bulletin, which was brought out every day by the Directorate of Film Festival for twelve days.
When I was made the Editor of the Bulletin by Director of the Film festivals Mr Shankar Narayanan, after asking for permission from the Directorate, I let Shaheen join my editorial team and also allowed him stay in my room so that he was not put to inconvenience and he moved out of Hotel Trimurti and for a few festivals, he was staying with me in the premises which were let out by the government for us to stay. Shaheen was happy because not only was a car provided at my disposal to ferry us from the house to the Festival complex and back every day and also meals were provided to us every day right from the breakfast to lunch and dinner and Shaheen used to be very relieved every time we used to attend the festival.
While I was paid by the Festival authorities every year a decent amount to edit the festival bulletin, Shaheen used to get paid for the articles he wrote in the Bulletin as well as the job of assisting me. Shaheen also used to ask me to help him get publicity assignments at the venue to publicize Marathi as well as Hindi films producers who said films were scheduled for the Indian Panorama and he used to regularly arrange press conferences and host parties on behalf of the producers at the festival venue and make money to cover the expenses he used to incur on transport from Mumbai to Goa and shopping and others.
Eight years ago, when I was asked to be on the Jury of Nashik International Film Fetival and they asked me if I could suggest the name of another journalist, I recommended Shaheen and he also served in the Jury there.
To make his life easier, when I joined Mr T.P. Aggarwal ,IMPPA President as a staff in his magazine Blockbuster which he floated in 2012, though he wanted me to edit his trade weekly, I asked Shaheen Raaj to meet him one day and join as a part time correspondent of Blockbuster and I remember every Friday night after completing the work of the weekly, we used to take an auto and go to Andheri Station from where the never -say-die Shaheen used to go to Malad at Madh Island where he used to stay and I used to leave him at Malad and proceed to my house at Kandivali. Shaheen used to review Hollywood films as well as cover Hollywood news for Blockbuster.
My stint with Shaheen continued even after Blockbuster was folded up and he wrote with me for yet another film trade weekly which I edited called Film Bazaar and the fortnightly magazine Cinebuster, which was also edited by me for business magnate cum publisher Ronny Rodrigues. Shaheen wrote from Bengaluru on the Kannada film industry from there regularly till I left the magazine.
Thanks to the pandemic, Shaheen and I were almost out of touch for the last year and a half though he rang me up to tell me that he had written for Amazon Prime Video an article consisting of the interviews that he had done over the last 40 years as a journalist. I feel very sad that I did not bother to make time to read the article. I curse myself now but then I did not at all expect that Shaheen would leave us all and walk away to Allah there leaving us in the lurch. May Allah let his soul rest in peace. I will miss you for posterity my dear friend Shaheen and the International Film Festival in Goa will no longer be the same without you .
