E-Paper
Gulshan Ewing, pioneering magazine editor, dies of Covid-19 in London
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.
Gulshan Ewing, pioneering editor of magazines in India who interviewed top Bollywood and Hollywood actors and encouraged a generation of writers, passed away on Saturday after being infected with the coronavirus in a care home in London, her daughter said on Tuesday. She was 92.
Mrs 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, Mrs. 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.
Mrs 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 Mrs. Ewing encouraged. He acknowledged her support for his early writing in his 1990 book, ‘The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories’.
Mrs 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.
There are concerns that those infected by the virus and passing away in care homes are not being adequately monitored and provided for as Britain’s health authorities grapple with the pandemic that has so far killed over 16,000 people in the country.
