Partap Sharma — the voice of India
Partap Sharma was a man of many talents rolled into one. He was a playwright, novelist, actor, author of current history and children books and a documentary filmmaker. But in addition to that he was India’s best-known voice. He was a talented voice over artist, speaker and narrator. He had an excellent accent in English, spoke Hindi very well and knew how to act in Hindi films and mesmerized those around him.
We first met as teenagers residing at St. Xavier’s college hostel.
With so many talents he sailed through college with ease as he took part in many hostel and college activities. Partap was born in Lahore in Punjab — now in Pakistan — the eldest son of Dr. Baji Nath Sharma and Dayati Pandit Sharma. His father was a civil engineer who served as an adviser to the governments of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, Tanganyika and Libya. Upon retirement he returned to his ancestral property in Punjab as a farmer. Partap enjoyed his travels with his father and learned a great deal from them, including his mastery of English as well as the English accent that helped him become the best speaker at Indian functions and events so much so that he was dubbed “India’s voice.” When we were together at the hostel, he easily won nominations to act in skits and represent the college whenever there was need to do so. He was so good that those around him expected him to go further in life especially that his voice had been well known very early in his college career.
We parted company as we graduated, he to settle in Mumbai and pursue a successful career in the art and literature of the country while I returned to Aden and went to the US for higher studies. But a few years later, I went back to Mumbai to recruit fresh faces for my father’s newspaper in English and later on for this one in the early 1970s. Scores of very good Indian journalists, proofreaders, artists and many others joined me over the following years, some of whom are still there doing exceedingly well. So one of the first phone calls I made was to Partap because he would know some of the best candidates or at least those in the profession on account of his growing fame in the field. He did and soon we were meeting at the old Oberio hotel along the Marine Drive facing the Arabian Sea. From there it was easy going for me.
Then I went to his house in Breach Candy, off Warden Road, down the road from Cumballa Hill. He was married to Susan Amanda Pick of the famous British book company Macmillan and built or rebuilt a lovely house facing the sea which had a beach front that made it look like the Caribbean Sea where he liked to write very good novels and plays and smoke so heavily that I was worried about his health since he depended on his precious voice that fetched him a large income those days.
There I was introduced to Susan and his lovely little daughters of whom one, Tara, went on to become a Hindi film actress and Nimrita a writer who now lives in Shanghai, China. Then he took a special pride in introducing me to his famous Alsatian dog Ranja. I was fascinated because Ranja was well and painstakingly trained by Partap to become a great detective dog so much so that Partap wrote a book about his exploits based on real life stories. Since I was going back to the Kingdom at the time I offered to buy the rights of serializing the book in this newspaper. He agreed and left it to me to decide the amount, which was then a few thousand rupees, a good deal for both of us. Surprisingly the book was a great success here and Ranja went on to create more exploits for another book edition and some money for his master.
Despite his heavy smoking, which was gradually affecting his health, especially the throat, Partap went on from strength to strength, writing children’s books like Dog Detective Ranja and the Little Master of the Elephant. Commenting on his work, Rosemary Stones of the Children’s Book Bulletin said, “Sharma has written a good, old-fashioned story book, its rather solid virtues enlivened by the amusing device of having events narrated by the dog.”
The book Days of the Turban was about Punjab in transition, especially that it was undergoing a revolution of sorts by the Sikhs some of whom were striving for a separate homeland like Pakistan on a religious basis. But the circumstances were different as the Sikhs lacked a leader like Jinnah of Pakistan and there was no colonial power in between and the Indians were by far stronger than ever before and were willing to use all their powers to defeat the separatist movement. They used superior force and made it clear that they were willing to go to war against Pakistan to prevent another partition of their country. In the end the movement petered out and India remained intact.
Our friendship continued to prosper as we met in my hotel, the Oberio, or his house but his health continued to worry me and those friends who joined us at our parties.
Strangely enough he did not cease smoking as his disease progressed. The final blow came when he accompanied his daughter to China where his Western tobacco brands were not available. So instead of giving up smoking, he chose to smoke Chinese cigarettes, which had probably, double the poison because they were not as refined as the foreign ones although all smoking is bad anyway under any name or country of origin.
In my last visit to his house I found him carrying a mask with his oxygen bottle because his lungs were no longer working although he did not complain or show any fear of the impending death.
Partap’s acting career included the Merchant Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah (1965); and he appeared as Nehru in both The Jewel of India (1990) and Bandung Sonata (2002). His voice was for decades one of the best-known English-speaking voices in India, on advertisements, the weekly government newsreels and in son-et-lumière recordings. The one at the Red Fort in Delhi is still in use.
Despite having to use an oxygen mask for 18 hours a day and with almost no lung function because of his emphysema, he managed to record three Shakespeare plays three years ago, reading every part himself. In 2010, a year before his death, he sang and recorded a CD of songs for his grandson Zen and wrote two new children’s stories.
Emphysema is a long-term lung disease, according to the Internet. The tissues necessary to support the shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It is called obstructive lung disease because the destruction of lung tissue around smaller sacs, called alveoli, makes these air sacs unable to hold their functional shape upon exhalation. It is often caused by tobacco smoking and long-term exposure to air pollution.
• Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.
