There was no ad film or documentary in the 1970s and ‘80s that did not have Partap Sharma’s voiceover. He was, simply, The Voice, suave, silky and above all correct. Pat, as he was called, was very particular about diction and pronounciation. Those were the days of Received English, grammatically correct language delivered in a propah accent; none of the chalta hai Hinglish of today.
But Pat was more than just a voiceover artist. He was an actor — in the movies and on the stage — a playright, a teacher and, unknown to most, a chess player. This last is what brought us together; a few of us met regularly in his den and played the game for hours at end, once for a 36 hour marathon with just a few breaks for a nap. He would play with great precision and passion, all the time humming songs which some of us complained were distracting.
As a young man, Pat burst into public conciousness in 1964 when his play A Touch Of Brightness was staged in Bombay. The play was invited to a festival in Britain but the night before the crew was to depart their passports were seized by the authorities. Indian officialdom was prickly about sending a play about brothels and prostitutes abroad and in 1966 it was officially banned in the city. It look six years of court battles to get the ban lifted and Pat fought it tooth and nail. In 1967 it was performed on radio in Britain by a cast that included a young Judi Dench.
The play is now read in various university courses and routinely performed in different parts of the world.
He wrote several plays, but younger theatre goers will remember him for Sammy, based on Gandhi’s experiences with racism in South Africa, that was staged in 2005. Pat also wrote many books, including one on his dog Ranjha and another, Days of the Turban, about extremism in Punjab in the 1980s. He acted in a few feature films, twice as Nehru, but his was not the face or demeanour for a Bollywood film.
As long as I knew him, he used to disappear to Mahabaleshwar during the summer and rent a house where he just sat and wrote. Those who wanted to commission him for voice overs knew that he was simply not available during those months. Those close to him also knew his passion for karate, which he learnt diligently for years, even making a documentary film about it.
But, strangely for an actor and a sportsman, Pat was also a smoker. He knew it was not good for him but persisted with it.
During a visit to China, to shoot for a film, The Bandung Sonata (2002), in which he played Nehru, he smoked heavily and he contracted emphysema, a lung disorder which required him to carry a bottle of oxygen all the time and breathe through a tube attached to it.
Such was his willpower, however, that he decided to record CDs of Shakespeare’s plays – Merchant of Venice, Julius Ceaser and Macbeth — voicing each character himself. This was a remarkable feat considering he was on oxygen all the time and had to take off the tube for short bursts to record. The CDs make for compelling listening.
The last time I met him at a social occasion, he was wearing the mask but was quite enjoying the socialising.
He spoke of his illness frankly and spoke about writing some more books. Most of all, we discussed chess and our plans to revive the old group once again. Sadly, that will never be.