Page 38 - Seniorstoday April 2022 Issue

Spotlight

Phool Khile Hain

Tabassum Tabassum

Suguna Sundaram in conversation with the effervescent Queen of the
Small Screen, reveals how she has remained exceptionally relevant
through seven decades in the spotlight, and counting

One of the high points of entertainment her inimitable style. Coquettish, cajoling,
in the seventies and eighties (in the convincing and full of joie de vivre, which
last millennium), was the pioneering she unfailingly infused in both, her guests
television chat show, Phool Khile Hain and her viewers, Tabassum brought the
Gulshan Gulshan, conceived and hosted stars and their ‘larger than life’ stories right
by the sparkling, witty, baby-faced actress into our living rooms. Friday evenings were
Tabassum. most eagerly awaited. It was Chhaya Geet
Tabassum wears the title of ‘Original on Wednesday evenings, and PKHGG on
Queen of the Small Screen” with Fridays.
unparalleled élan. Her popular show Phool Tabassum was born Kiran Bala Sachdev
Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan (PKHGG), in pre-independent India, in Bombay, in
the first of its kind, had a run of well over the year 1944. She began her acting career
two decades, way back when Doordarshan as a toddler in 1947, going by the name of
Kendra was the only national television Baby Tabassum, which, she delightfully
channel, which itself was inaugurated in gurgles, she gets called by some old-timers
October 1972. PKHGG was one of DD’s first even today, at age 78. She recalls a meeting
shows, beginning in 1972 and lasting right with the late Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Chacha
until 1993. Slotted on a Friday evening, the to Tabassum) some years ago, where Saira
weekly show saw the vibrant Tabassum Banu, his wife, had brought him to a public
interviewing film and television stars, in function, but his memory was already

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