Gulshan Ewing, pioneering editor of Indian magazines who interviewed top Bollywood and Hollywood actors and encouraged a generation of writers, passed away recently after being infected with the coronavirus in a care home in London, her daughter said. She was 92. Ewing, who belonged to a Parsi family in Mumbai, was editor of Eve’s Weekly and Star & Style. She was one of the first women editors of leading Indian publications since the mid-1960s, setting benchmarks in film journalism and focussing on women readers.
A confidante of the late Madhubala, one of the most popular actors in Indian film history, Ewing was part of Bollywood’s glamour set, interacting closely with leading personalities. She also interviewed Hollywood actors like Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Danny Kaye, Kirk Douglas and Roger Moore.
Ewing was part of the group of eclectic Mumbai-based writers, editors and journalists in the Mumbai of the 1970s and 1980s that included prominent names such as Khushwant Singh, BK Karanjia, Dom Moraes and Vimla Patil.
Her London-based daughter, Anjali Ewing, said: “There is a very lovely carefree photo with Madhubala and another lady but I don’t have any background on their relationship. She left Mumbai in 1990 for good. She kept in touch with a group of journalists from Eve’s Weekly throughout. She didn’t do any writing in London. She loved to encourage new talent. They always talk about how kind she was to them”, she added.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is one of the writers Ewing encouraged. He acknowledged her support for his early writing in his 1990 book, ‘The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories.' Ewing was married to Guy Ewing, who grew up in Manchester and moved to India to work as a journalist. They married in Mumbai in 1955 and moved to London in 1990, settling in Richmond. Guy Ewing passed away in 2018.
"I was right by her side when she stopped breathing." Despite her age, her mother had no pre-existing conditions, she says. In his book 'India: A million mutinies now,' Nobel laureate VS Naipaul describes her as "India's most famous female editor." She also holds the record for the longest-ever interview that Indira Gandhi, India's first and only female prime minister, gave to any journalist.
In Bollywood, says her daughter, her friendships ran deep - she dropped in on the sets of superstar Rajesh Khanna, partied with legends like Dilip Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand, Sunil Dutt and Nargis, and even danced with "biggest showman" Raj Kapoor. Ewing had been ill for a week and died peacefully on 18 April. Her test result, confirming the coronavirus infection, came a day later.
