The Newscaster Who Became Family

Sarla Maheshwari brought families together for that half hour -- delivering the news with remarkable poise, a firm command over language, without drama or noise.

Sarla Maheshwari made an elegant appearance in the drawing room on most nights at 9 pm.

Every other night, she would open the news bulletin with a dignified 'Namaskar' in her calm and measured voice.

Dinner was finished, household chores were wrapped up, and school-college going kids of the family were encouraged to sit in front of TV to know what had happened in the world that day.

She brought families together for that half hour -- delivering the news with remarkable poise, a firm command over language and diction, without drama or noise.

Sarla Maheshwari and her ilk of Doordarshan news anchors of the 1980s-1990s set the bar so high that it has not been surpassed more than four decades later.

They represented the golden era of the live public broadcast, much before 24 hour-networks and streaming platforms invaded our homes and conquered our phones.

They were the OGs of style and substance.

Family members would place light-hearted bets on which news reader would be on air that night before the broadcast began.

Everybody had their own favourites, and could identify the 'news readers' -- as they were then called -- by their voices.

Their saris were coveted; their styles copied. You brushed up on your Hindi and English as you listened to them while keeping up with 'current affairs'.

They inspired many -- especially women -- to explore careers in media, showing the way to those who followed.

Doordarshan anchors became part of the nation's lives. They were like friends or family who dropped in every other night and made you watch, listen and absorb.

Importantly, their live broadcast won people's trust.

And that is why their passing is mourned. One of the Originals, Sarla Maheshwari died last week at 71 after a Doordarshan career that lasted nearly three decades.

Sarla Maheshwari started out with children's programmes in the mid-70s - and then moved to the news broadcast.

She delivered the news with a no-nonsense, dignified flair. There were no unnecessary pauses, or needless thrust on words to give importance to a particular news item.

She shouldered the enormous responsibility of announcing the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi on the national news in 1991 -- and did it with grace and composure.

When news came of her death on February 12, grief descended on generations who had known her through their television screens and let her into their homes.

One of her colleagues Sheila Chaman, another DD stalwart, remembers a friendship which started in the days of black and white television transmissions.

"I first met Sarla in the make-up room where she was getting ready to read the Hindi news bulletin and I had stepped out of the studios after recording an interview with a foreign guest for the programme Panorama," remembers the veteran who worked in DD in various roles -- presenter, interviewer, newsreader, correspondent, stringer and trainer.

Ms Chaman's book Doordarshan Diaries - The Golden Era of Television, was launched last September on DD's foundation day in New Delhi.

"Sarla was very down to earth with no airs and simplistic in her ways. We all wore saris, the national dress for our appearances. Sarla being a Gujarati, wore hers in the Gujarati style with the palloo coming from over her right shoulder. She carried that off very gracefully," says Chaman.

The draping of the palloo from the opposite side, a mole on her left cheek and a slightly off-centre bindi were Sarla ji's signature dressing style.

"She was grace personified and very spiritual and was one of my closest friends from Doordarshan. We stayed in touch right till her unfortunate, sad demise. We talked on the telephone often and chatted about the good old happy DD times and reminisced of the long hours of work which were without a trace of irritation or fatigue -- we enjoyed our work!" she says.

The DD news casters at that time were freelancers and were paid by the day. They did a 5-hour shift, reporting at 5 pm for the 9 pm bulletin - and would leave the centre around 10 pm.

"A cheque of Rs 150 would be waiting at the news desk at the end of our telecast," says Ms Chaman.

Sarla Maheshwari held a doctorate from Delhi University and taught Hindi in Delhi's Hansraj College early on in her career.

She joined DD in 1976 and took a hiatus when she moved to England in the mid-1980s after marrying a doctor employed in the UK.

Four years later, the couple returned to Delhi and she resumed at DD -- and went on to become one of its most well-known live broadcasters -- along with a host of others like Ms Chaman, Gitanjali Aiyar, Salma Sultan, Neethi Ravindran, Komal G B Singh, Minu Talwar, Rini Simon-Khanna.

"All of us presenters and news readers had great bonding and camaraderie -- no ill feelings or 'competition'. There was no jealousy or ill feelings. We often met and chatted in the make-up room while getting ready -- always about work, saris, DD personnel and hardly ever about our personal lives," says Ms Chaman.

"None of our family members visited the TV Centre (as it was then known, housed in Parliament Street next to the iconic red All India Radio building). It was later, after we all left working for Doordarshan that we sometimes visited each other and today we are friends."

"Sarla, to everyone, was dignified and poised. Ever smiling and graceful. She and I often talked on the telephone till she could and slowly, as she became weaker she would just send me a short Whatsapp message,' says Ms Chaman, looking back at her time spent with a dear friend.

In 2021 when Ms Chaman was asked by the ministry of information and broadcasting to write a book on Doordarshan, she promptly reached out to Sarla to be a co-author.

"She was reluctant at first but after much persuasion she agreed to send in a write-up and wrote it by hand in Hindi. I translated that in English and it's now a part of the book."

"I feel very grateful to her for writing it for the love of me as she said and only later learnt about her illness which finally took her away from us. It feels painful to refer to her in the past tense."

Sarlaji was ailing for a couple of years and undergoing dialysis.

After publication of the book, Ms Chaman sent her a copy and told her to 'read your portion and enjoy'.

"She did not want me to visit her to give her a copy of the book personally as she probably did not want me to see her in her weakened condition. This fills me with grief!" says Ms Chaman.

Her last Whatsapp message to her was sent on January 25: 'Congratulations Sheila. You have really made sincere efforts to make this book a success. All the best'.

In her passing, television news lost one of its pioneers.

Rest in Peace, Sarla ji. You were The Original -- truly unsurpassable.