Down the memory lane with Tabassum : Bollywood News

Life goes onâ€¦.

By this time I had got married to Vijay Govil. At the age of 20 I was a mother and I decided that now I would devote myself to motherhood completely, but destiny had different plans in store for me. As a child I had done a little bit of radio and it helped me make a career. Back then in 1970, before Doordarshan came to India, Saridon Ke Saathi which was hosted by Ameen Sayani offered me a ten-minute slot in their programme. The show Jokes Of Tabassum went on for 18 years where I used to narrate small anecdotes and jokes. My listeners from Pakistan and Middle East used to send me mails praising my narrative style. At that time things seemed to be going great on the professional front. As of today about 10 joke-books have been published in India. I have written them in English, Hindi and Urdu. I have a collection of more than 1 lakh jokes with me and today these shows like Laughter Challenge and Comedy Circus use my jokes. Not once have they acknowledged me or given credit to my work, but I hold no grudges against them.

Television callingâ€¦

It was quite late in life that I got the opportunity to work with television. In 1972, when Doordarshan came to India, Krishnamoorthy, the director of Phool Khile Hai Gulshan Gulshan expressed his desire to work with me. Out of the four-hour transmission that Doordarshan had, I was offered 30 minutes. In such a short time I was required to interview a celebrity, telecast film songs and one dance performance. It became almost impossible to interview a star in ten minutes and the time was increased to half an hour just for celebrity interview. The show went on for 21 years from 1972 to 1993. In this tenure I interviewed every star from Bollywood. The only two people I couldnt interview were Raj Kapoor and Deven Verma. The stars on my show used to talk intermittently so to fill in the gaps I used to talk and eventually everyone started labelling me talkative. The talent shows that we see today were actually started by me 35 years back. It was at that time that I started Tabassum Hit Parade for promoting new talent. In fact Sunidhi Chauhan and Johny Lever were my discoveries.

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