Obituary - Current Affairs for October, 2017

Renowned Malayalam filmmaker I.V. Sasi passed away on 24th Oct 2017 in Chennai where he was undergoing treatment. With over 150 films to his credit, Sasi was known for his work in between 1970-2000. He has directed a few Hindi films as well. The veteran director won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration in the year 1982 for his movie ‘Aaroodam’. He has also received multiple state awards for his work. He was also the recipient of the JC Daniel Award in 2015. Born in 1948, Sasi married yesteryear actor Seema whom he met on the sets of his movie ‘Avalude Raavukkal’. The couple has worked together in several movies. They have two children, a daughter and a son. Incidentally, Sasi began his career as an art director with ‘Kaliyalla Kalyanam’ in 1968. His first directorial venture was ‘Ulsavam’ which released in the year 1975. Some of his best known films are ‘Avalude Raavukal’, ‘Devaasuram’, ‘Guru’, ‘Eeta’, ‘Angaadi’, ‘Anubhavam’, ‘Ayalkari’, ‘Inspector Balram’, ‘1921’, ‘Vellathooval’, ‘Balram vs Tharadas’, ‘Sradha’, amid others. One of the most successful director in Malayalam industry, Sasi was instrumental in establishing stars like Mammootty and Mohanlal.

Industrialist and CMD of Manikchand Group Rasiklal Manikchand Dhariwal passed away due to multi-organ failure this evening in a private hospital. He was 79 and is survived by wife Shobha, a son and four daughters. According to the hospital, where Dhariwal breathed his last, he was admitted on September 4 and was suffering from cancer. Born in Shirur in Pune district of Maharashtra, Dhariwal inherited a bidi factory with 20 workers from his father and went on to become a gutkha baron. He spotted potential in tobacco products and further diversified his business and ventured into gutkha business, where he made a name for himself. Not limiting his business to gutkha, whose manufacturing and sale was banned in Maharashtra a few years ago, Dhariwal forayed into newer domains such as packaging, roller flour mills, real estate, wind energy, packaged drinking water and pet preforms (for water and edible oil). From tobacco products, Dhariwal diversified into pan masala, mouth-fresheners, packaged water, electrical switches, and even flour mills. He is survived by his wife Shobha and five children. Through his philanthropic entity the Rasiklal M Dhariwal Foundation, the industrialist launched projects in the areas of healthcare, education, environment and disaster management, among others.

Distinguished classical singer and Padma Vibhushan awardee Girija Devi passed away on 24th Oct 2017 evening at a hospital in Kolkata following a cardiac arrest. Girija was 88, and is survived by a daughter. Fondly called Appa ji, the queen of Thumri was taken to the city's BM Birla Heart Research Centre on Tuesday afternoon with cardiovascular ailments. A legendary singer of the "Benaras gharana" had received Padma Shri in 1972, Padma Bhushan in 1989 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2016. Known as the "thumri queen", Girija Devi popularised the genre of semi-classical Indian music. She was conferred with all three Padma awards, and was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan in 2016. Tributes from stalwarts in the Indian music industry began pouring in soon after news of the singer's demise broke. Born in a zamindar family at a village near Banaras on May 8, 1929, music was a part of Girija Devi's life from a very early age.

Bollywood actress Rani Mukerji's father Ram Mukherjee passed away at 5am on 22nd Oct 2017. He was 84. According to sources close to the family, his blood pressure decreased drastically following which he was taken to a hospital. The veteran filmmaker has directed several movies such as Raktanadir Dhara, Tomar Rakte Amar Sohag, Raktalekha and Ek Bar Mooskura Do to name a few. He is survived by wife Krishna Mukherjee, daughter Rani and son Raja. Ram Mukherjee was one of the founders of Filmalaya Studios in Mumbai. His most famous works are Hum Hindustani and Leader. In fact, Ram had launched Rani Mukherjee in the Bengali film Biyer Phool (1996).

Shamsher Khan, the country’s first swimmer who had participated in the 1956 Summer Olympics, died at his native village Repalle on 15th Oct 2017. Mr. Khan, 92, died of heart attack. Mr. Khan had enrolled himself in the Indian Army in 1949. He had taken part in various national swimming competitions. He won a place in the Indian Olympics contingent that had visited Australia in 1956. He, however, secured fourth place in the competition. He continued to serve in the Army till he retired in 1973. After retirement, he settled at Repalle. He lived a life of penury till his death. In July 2016, the Andhra Pradesh Government awarded him INR 25 lakh. Shamsher Khan: Know More

• Shamsher Khan was an Indian swimmer who represented India in the 1956 Summer Olympics.
• In 1954, he made a national record in the 200-meter butterfly event.
• He broke the existing national record at the national meet in Bangalore in 1955.
• Born: 1931, Guntur
• Died: 15 October 2017

Veteran filmmaker Lekh Tandon, who directed iconic film like "Amrapali", has died, it was announced on Oct 15 2017. He was 88. Tandon passed away at his residence on Oct 14. Born in Lahore in 1929, Tandon directed many Bollywood stalwarts like Shammi Kapoor ("Professor", 1962; "Prince", 1969), Rajender Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Shabana Azmi, Rekha, Rajesh Khanna to name a few. His "Amrapali" (1966), featuring Sunil Dutt and Vyjayanthimala, that was selected as Indian entry for the best foreign language film at 39th Academy awards. He also bagged Filmfare Best Screenplay Award for his movie "Dulhan Wahi Jo Piya Man Bhaye", along with Vrajendra Gaur and Madhusudan Kalekar in 1978. He directed his first television serial "Dil Dariya" in 1988 through which he was also credited for discovering Shah Rukh Khan. Tandon also acted in films like "Swadesa, "Chennai Express", "Rang De Basanti" among others.

Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who exposed her island nation’s links to offshore tax havens through the leaked Panama Papers was killed on Oct 17, 2017 in a bomb explosion in her car. Ms. Galizia, 53, had just driven away from her home in Mosta, a town outside Malta’s capital of Valletta, when the bomb went off, sending the vehicle’s wreckage spiraling over a wall and into a field. Mr. Muscat says Galizia’s death resulted from a “barbaric attack” that also amounted to an assault on the freedom of expression. Politico magazine named Ms. Galizia as one of 28 Europeans who are “shaping, shaking and stirring” Europe. She revealed that Mr. Muscat’s wife, Michelle, as well as Muscat’s Energy Minister and the government’s chief-of-staff held companies in Panama by looking into the 2016 document leak. Mr. Muscat and his wife have denied that they held such companies. Opposition leader Adrian Delia called the killing a “political murder.” Ms. Galizia was sued for libel because of various articles she wrote on her blog “Running Commentary,” and she had filed a report with the police two weeks ago that she was receiving threats. The Oct 17 evening’s Parliament session was scrapped, except for briefings about the bombing scheduled to be given by Mr. Muscat and Mr. Delia. In June, Mr. Muscat was sworn in for a second term as Prime Minister following snap elections he had called to reinforce his government as the Panama Papers’ leak indicated his wife owned an offshore company.

National award winning director Kundan Shah dies National Award-winning director Kundan Shah, best known for his dark satire Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and coming-of-age comedy Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, passed away at his residence. He was 69. Shah died of a heart attack. His last rites were performed at Shivaji Park crematorium here by his daughter Shilpa with close family members and friends from the film fraternity in attendance. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro actors Naseeruddin Shah, Satish Shah and writer Sudhir Mishra came to pay tributes to Shah at his residence and were also present at the crematorium. Born on October 19, 1947, Shah studied direction at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune and made his directorial debut with Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro in 1983. The movie, featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah, Satish Kaushik, Bhakti Barve and Neena Gupta, went on to achieve cult status despite a poor box office showing. More than three decades later, the film - revolving around two bumbling photographers, a canny newspaper editor and corrupt civic officials - continues to be relevant as a scathing commentary on contemporary India. He received the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a Director.

Jalal Talabani, the first Kurdish president of Iraq died on 3rd Oct 2017. Only a week earlier, Kurds voted overwhelmingly in a referendum in support of breaking away from Iraq to form an independent state, sending tensions spiralling with the central government in Baghdad and with Iraq’s neighbours, who fear similar Kurdish separatist sentiment on their soil. At the time of the vote, Talabani had been out of politics for nearly five years after a 2012 stroke left him debilitated and permanently hospitalized. The referendum vote, which was led by his long-time Kurdish rival, regional President Masoud Barzani, is not expected to lead to a Kurdish state anytime soon and has further isolated the small land-locked region. Iraq and its neighbours have rejected the vote, and Baghdad has banned international flights and threatened to take control of the autonomous Kurdish region’s borders. Talabani came from a generation of Kurdish leaders, who spent decades fighting for self-rule and whose people were often brutally repressed by the central government. Born in a tiny village north of the city of Irbil on November 12, 1933, Talabani was in his early teens when he joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, the main Kurdish political force at the time trying to carve out an autonomous homeland for Iraq’s Kurds.

Tom Petty, an old-fashioned rock superstar and everyman who drew upon The Byrds, The Beatles and other bands he worshipped as a boy and produced new classics such as “Free Fallin,’ “Refugee” and “American Girl,” has died. He was 66. Petty passed away on Oct 2, 2017 at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles a day after he suffered a cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu, California, . Petty and his longtime band The Heartbreakers had recently completed a 40th anniversary tour, one he hinted would be their last. Usually backed by the Heartbreakers, Petty broke through in the 1970s and went on to sell more than 80 million records. The Gainesville, Florida, native with the shaggy blond hair and gaunt features was loved for his melodic hard rock, nasally vocals and down-to-earth style. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Petty and the Heartbreakers in 2002, praised them as “durable, resourceful, hard-working, likeable and unpretentious”. Petty’s albums included “Damn the Torpedoes,” “Hard Promises” and “Full Moon Fever,” although his first No. 1 did not come until 2014 and “Hypnotic Eye”. As a songwriter, he focused often on daily struggles and the will to overcome them, most memorably on “Refugee”, “Even the Losers” and “I Won’t Back Down”. By his early 20s, Petty had formed the group Mudcrutch with fellow Gainesville natives and future Heartbreakers (guitarist) Mike Campbell and (keyboardist) Benmont Tench. They soon broke up, but reunited in Los Angeles as the Heartbreakers, joined by bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch. Their eponymous debut album came out in 1976 and they soon built a wide following, fitting easily into the New Wave sounds of the time. The world changed more than Petty did over the past few decades. In 2014, around the time he received an ASCAP Founders Award, he told The Associated Press that he thought of himself as “kind of a music historian”.

Manikam Ramaswami, 63, chairman and managing director of Loyal Textile Mills, passed away in Chennai on Oct 2, 2017. Sources said Ramaswami had collapsed after being administered anaesthesia for a dental procedure and was taken to a private hospital in Adyar where doctors declared him dead. His Loyal Group includes ‘P.Orr & Sons’, a popular watch dealing and servicing company. He was also passionate about education — he was the correspondent of the Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai and Thiagarajar Model Higher Secondary School, as well as the secretary at the Thiagarajar College of Preceptors. Ramaswami was the past chairman of TEXPROCIL, the association for cotton textiles exports promotion. He was the Honorary Consul for Chennai, The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. As chairman at TEXPROCIL, he had taken several efforts to boost yarn exports. He joined Loyal Textile Mills, his family business, full time in 1976. The company’s revenues have risen to ?200-plus crore from ?2.5 crore in 1975, said a statement from his office. Manikam Ramaswami: Know More

• The industrialist is survived by wife Valli Manikam Ramaswami and daughter Vishala Ramaswami.
• A mechanical engineer from IIT Madras, he was awarded the Banco Foundation Gold Medal.
• As part of his college project, he received a patent for an oscillating piston internal combustion engine, the statement said. He has also served as chairman for SIMA.
• He also played a key role in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He was the past chairman of CII Tamil Nadu State Council.

Veteran film, television and theatre actor and Padma Shri Tom Alter has died aged 67. The renowned actor and one-time sports writer and author had been battling stage four skin cancer. Alter acted in over 300 movies apart from numerous TV shows, most famously as the gangster Keshav Kalsi in the hit soap opera Junoon which ran for a record five years during the 1990s. In addition to acting, Alter also ventured into direction and was a sports journalist in the 80s and 90s. He was the first person to interview Sachin Tendulkar for TV when the cricketer was yet to debut for India. Alter has written three books, one non-fiction and two fiction, and in 2008 was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri by the Indian government in recognition for his services to the field of arts and cinema. Born in the hill station of Mussoorie in 1950, Alter was a third-generation American in India who studied at Woodstock School in the Himalayas and then briefly at Yale University in the USA, before returning to India in the early 70s. In 1972, he was one of three men—the others being Benjamin Gilani and Phunsok Ladakhi—chosen from over 800 applicants across north India to be enrolled in at the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, where two years later he graduated with a gold medal diploma in acting. Alter's first release was Ramanand Sagar's Charas in 1976, in which he played the role of superstar Dharmendra's boss, a CID official. Among his notable roles during the first decade of his acting career were Satyajit Ray's Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977), Shyam Benega's Junoon (1979), Manoj Kumar's magnum opus Kranti (1981) and Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985). Other notable directors he worked with during the 70s and 80s were V Shantaram, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manmohan Desai, Subhash Ghai, Chetan Anand - who gave him his first break in the Dev Anand-starrer Saheb Bahadur - and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who gave him the pivotal role of the gangster Musa in the critically acclaimed hit Parinda. In the 90s, Alter was seen in many films, prominent among them Mahesh Bhatt’s Aashiqui, Junoon and Gumrah, Ketan Mehta's Sardar and Priyadarshan's Kala Pani. During this time, he also acted in regional cinema—Bengali, Assamese, Telegu, Tamil and Kumaoni films. Among his foreign films are Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi and One Night with the King, in which he acted opposite his idol, the legendary Peter O'Toole. On TV, Alter's leading work came in Junoon, Zabaan Sambhalke, Jugalbandi, Bharat EK Khoj, Ghutan, Shaktimaan, Captain Vyom, Mere Ghar Aana Zindagi and Yahaan Ke Hum Sikandar. Most recently, he was seen in a pivotal role in the ongoing serial Rishton Ka Chakravyuh on Star Plus. At the time of his death, Alter had approximately 16 unreleased films lined up as well as a web series by Eros Now titled Smoke. Tom Alter: Know More

• Throughout his cinematic and television career, Alter remained busy with theatre, having co-founded Motley Productions with Naseeruddin Shah and Gilani in 1979.
• His prominent stage work includes the two-and-a-half-hour-long solo play in Urdu, 'Maulana', 'Babur ke Aulaad', 'Lal Qile ka Aakhri Mushaira', 'Ghalib ke Khat', 'Trisanga', 'Teesveen Shatabdi', Copenhagen' and the theatrical reproduction of William Dalrymple's 'City of Djinns'.
• In early 2017, Alter enacted a festival of his various plays in Hindi, English, Hindustani and Urdu titled ’Jashn-e-Maazi: The Play of History' which featured 19 of his portrayals and adaptations of leading historical figures such as Maulana Azad, Mirza Ghalib, Manto, Saahir Ludhianvi, Rabindranath Tagore, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Alfred Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi.
• He is survived by his wife Carol, son Jamie, and daughter Afshaan.