Former DD newsreader and author, Sheila Chaman, was also Miss Young India in 1971
Can you read this real fast, without a mispronounced syllable: “Betty bought a bit of butter, but she found the butter bitter, so she bought a bit of better butter to make the bitter butter better. Former DD newsreader Sheila Chaman can. Here’s why Do you remember the early 1980s? When Rasna was the welcome drink for guests at home, when washing powder Nirma took on the multinationals and when Charms became a rage among young smokers. This was also the time when news on television wasn’t a screaming contest; instead, newsreaders on Doordarshan (DD), India’s only channel, seemed to be like friends dropping by every evening, updating us about the nation. Sheila Chaman belongs to that fond era of DD newsreaders, whose diction and dress were imitated in equal measure.
The 22-year-old soon received a pink telegram, asking her to meet the producer. Chaman passed the test and became the show’s regular presenter, receiving Rs 75 for a week’s work in 1976. On Oct 31, 1984 — the day PM Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her bodyguards, Chaman was slotted to read the evening news in English. The anti-Sikh riots claimed over 2,000 lives in the national capital. On July 13, 1991, Chaman was returning from a family trip from Shirdi when a car coming from the opposite direction rammed into their Contessa. For about 10-15 minutes, I had no vision,” she remembers. She was born in Delhi, but grew up in different cities, especially Calcutta, where she spent her Miss Young India days and did a guest role in the Bengali film ‘Chithi’ (1972).
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“In the last line, I mentioned in the last line that I was the winner of the 1971 Miss Young India title,” she recalls. “It’s like a singer does riyaaz,” she says. “Betty bought a bit of butter, but she found the butter bitter, so she bought a bit of better butter to make the bitter butter better,” the former newsreader reels out, without faltering. “I used to ring up the desk of the state guest house and ask how a name was pronounced,” she says. It was like a clutch and brake,” she says. Chaman recalls how a howler was avoided when she received a page when a bulletin was in progress that went, “Prime Minister Giani Zail Singh”. She had to make a spot decision: read it as either “Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi” or “President Giani Zail Singh”. “I tried to keep myself as composed as possible,” Chaman says. She told him not to come home that night. What gives her the bigger satisfaction, however, is that “many successful television news anchors were briefly trained” by her. “It’s very important to have eye contact with the viewers,” she says. “It’s amazing how Doordarshan embedded us in the minds and hearts of people,” she says.
And its roots lay in a Weston TV bought on installments. An evening programme that caught her eye was ‘Mirror of the World’, a collection of visual snippets from across the globe. She wrote to the show’s female producer, expressing her desire to host the programme. Nobody responded. The beauty pageant winner title — actors Shashi Kapoor and Kamini Kaushal were among the judges — got DD’s attention. She was put on a single trial run. The job not only needed her to watch tapes from different embassies and cultural centres and select visual clippings, but also to memorise her lines before going on air. She would go on to host shows like ‘Panorama’ and ‘Our Guest Tonight’ before eventually becoming a newsreader. Sitting in the elegant Delhi Gymkhana, now under govt scrutiny, Chaman speaks with the poise of old, emphasising constantly the importance of flawless diction that personified DD newsreaders such as Tejeshwar Singh, Neethi Ravindran and Minu, to name a few. She talks about practicing correct pronunciation — and how tongue twisters improve fluency. Back in the day, newbies read Parliament News. With most parliamentarians closely following the bulletin, names had to be pronounced correctly. It helped that Chaman knew nine languages, partly through spending her early years in southern and eastern states, where her father worked for the Union food and agriculture ministry. In the pre-autocue and -teleprompter era, reading television news was challenging, to say the least. “We read from the script, looking up and down. “My gut feeling conveyed that it should be read as the latter, and so I did. It turned out to be the right call. This came as a huge relief to everyone who was on the bulletin that day,” she writes in her book, ‘Doordarshan Diaries’. Before her, Salma Sultan, whom she counts among her friends, read the Hindi bulletin. After the news, the producer, a Sikh gentleman, was about to leave for home when he received a call from his wife. “Suddenly, his face was ashen. There was mayhem on the streets,” Chaman recalls. “My head hit the dashboard, and glass pieces were in my face. At the Bombay hospital on Marine Lines, she underwent plastic surgery, where hundreds of micro-stitches were needed to repair her face. Six weeks on, she was back to reading news on television. But, thereafter, the newsreader decided to become a news correspondent. Chaman’s Sindhi parents — they are Chhuganis, and 60s film star Kumud Chhugani is a relative — had migrated from Sindh to Delhi during Partition. Not many may remember that she also played a doctor acting matchmaker between Dr Ashwin and Badki in the iconic DD serial ‘Hum Log’. Fewer would know that she compered shows for the Kalyanji-Anandji music troupe. “More than words, you speak with your eyes and body language. In the 80s, DD newsreaders were like celebs. Memories, as they say, are gold; and they never grow old. Download the TOI App.
Chaman’s association with DD started earlier than her news-reading days. But Chaman discovered at a Chandigarh lit fest last year that those of a certain vintage still remember her with affection and admiration.