Sham Lal, the renowned journalist and literary critic, passed away today. He was 94.

Sham Lal (in picture) joined the Hindustan Times in 1934. He later moved to The Times of India and became the paper’s editor in 1967. Sham Lal went on to become its longest serving editor.

He was best known for his weekly literary column, Life and Letters, which continued even after he retired in 1978. From 1994 to 2002, he wrote regularly in the comment pages of The Telegraph.

A columnist described Sham Lal as a person who “seldom rubbed shoulders with the rich, refused to play confidant to the powerful, shunned socialites and never broke bread with celebrities”.

Condoling Sham Lal’s death, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described him as the media icon of his generation. His essays, spanning a range of subjects on art, literature, aesthetics and eminent personalities, were compiled in two volumes titled A Hundred Encounters and Indian Realities: In Bits & Pieces.