Opinion Tabbassum: A pioneering chat show host

In a recent interview with Twinkle Khanna, filmmaker Karan Johar revealed that he wanted to “become Tabassum” when he grew up. His revelation that the late chat show host, who died this week at 78, was the inspiration for his show Koffee with Karan, is not surprising. To Indians of a certain vintage, the line of descent from Tabassum’s popular Doordarshan chat show, Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan, to Johar’s show couldn’t be clearer. At a time when mystique was an essential part of the celebrity toolkit, Tabassum nudged her famous guests to let their guard down. Others, like Johar or Simi Garewal, have only followed the path she laid down.

It helped that Tabassum — born Kiranbala — was a Bollywood insider almost from the start. She began acting before she turned three, debuting in the 1947 film Nargis as Baby Tabassum. She took on more mature roles as she grew up, but her biggest success came as an interviewer, where she used her considerable charm to coax revelations out of her celebrity interviewees. With a flower tucked in her hair and her sari drawn over both shoulders, she soon came to be as recognisable a figure as some of the stars on her show.

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Celebrity chat shows have been a mainstay of television since the 1990s. One might argue that Tabassum’s gentle interviewing style won’t work today. But as much as Tabassum relied on her native charm, she also deployed craft in her interviews. To watch her, for example, draw out a young, painfully shy Nazia Hassan, then still in school, to talk about her aspirations and even sing “Aap jaisa koi”, is to get a masterclass in the art of the interview. Tabassum knew how to probe without prying, with conversations that remain, to this day, a pleasure to watch.