A week ago, I got a message from Tara asking me to check out her new television programme called The Tara Sharma Show. I missed her launch, but was curious to see what she had put together. Three days later, when I called her, I found her in tears. “Are you ok?” I asked her. “No,” she let out a quiet sob. “I lost my father the day before,” she added.

Saddened by her tragedy, I told her that she had been on my mind all week. It’s strange, how a person can stay at the back of one’s mind at a particular time, when otherwise, does not generally occupy your thoughts. I told her that I wanted to talk to her about her show, but I would call her another time. She however, insisted I talk to her then, and said, “My father would have liked me to continue working no matter what.”
I had seen the recording of her launch. “I was not getting great roles in Bollywood,” she had said candidly and with humility. “Furthermore, I did not feel like leaving my children and being far away in some studio,” shrugged the graduate from London School of Economics. “It had better be very good for me to do that. However, now what is fun is being in the entertainment business and in the business of entertainment.”
The Tara Sharma Show is all about children, like what you should do with them and for them when you are travelling. “There were so many shows on every subject, even carpentry! But nothing on babies,” she said explaining how much fun it was making episodes like how to clean a baby’s potty or how to ideally take them on a plane.
She then talked about how women feel when they can’t work after marriage. “On the contrary, I have been far busier after marriage. We have to create opportunities and then everything works out,” she said. “In fact, thanks to today’s technology, even as I am feeding my baby, I am editing on a Mac,” she said in a slightly happier tone for the first time through our conversation.
“Maybe you were made to make shows on children” I said. “It’s easy — no makeup and no set involved,” she said cheerier by the minute. “My husband helped me, as he has a production house. Fisher Price saw it and now we are on Pogo and Imagine,” she said with a laugh.
“We had also made an episode with grandparents,” she said, her voice sounding choked again. “My father said that he was determined to get better and better so that he could spend more time with his grandchildren,” she added.
Her father was the famous Partap Sharma, known as “The golden voice of India”. He was in hospital the day before his daughter Tara got married. The doctor had said then that he had a short period to live. Talking lovingly about her father, she went on, “Not only did he attend my wedding, but he was around to see both my children. He even made home songs for my kids. I can’t believe he was here having a drink with us just a month ago.”
“I owe every bit of my success to my father. I won debates and elocutions all thanks to his help.
Even the success of my show, I owe to him.” Tara has a collection of his numerous recordings and writings too. “He has left a legacy behind him,” she added.
“Be the product, my father would say. You have to do what works for you and then do it well,” she continued, adding, “Even with parenting, I feel that 99 per cent of the parents do it right.” I felt that Tara could go on speaking about her father for any amount of time. I welled up several times during the conversation too. “My father would say,
whatever you do in life — whether you are successful or not — the most important qualities are humility, honesty and integrity. My father was a
living example of what he said,” she said emotionally.