Mumbai, Sep 3 (IANS): Television producer Nivedita Basu expressed her grief at the demise of actor Sidharth Shukla and talked about Sidharth as a person, meeting him in the gym, and also how she offered him work a few months before he passed away.

She said: "Sid and I used to go to the gym 'True Fitness' together almost 14 years back. He was a slightly short-tempered guy but super fun and softie when it came to a lot of things. Of course, being short-tempered can't be misunderstood as an aggressive person; rather he was less patient."

Nivedita described how the late actor had grown career-wise. She said: "He was soaring in his career. In fact, I offered him something a few months back work-wise and he told me, 'Nivs now is my time to earn and roll,' and I said 'yeah do that Sid, your time has come, now fly high'. But God didn't give me that opportunity to cast him for my next project."

"I have been in Kerala since the past 10 days and the moment I got this news I was in disbelief and was looking for those fake news items but all I got to read was all news portals reporting it as true news...I was dumbfounded. I wanted to dial his number to check but didn't have the strength, wanted to know details because being such a fit guy, how could this happen?"