Awards of Justice

B.o.l.l.y.w.o.o.d ! Unravelled at the Filmfare Awards !

Really ?

Think again, Bollywood ravelled at the Film Unfair Awards !

This is what is being discussed in the Bollywood forums right now. People questioning the authenticity of the given awards , outnumber those actually appreciating it.

Surprisingly, I belong to the latter category, as I have been a vocal critic of the FilmFair Awards since the time I realised what awards mean in life. I appreciate the organizers and jury this time around, because they have shown an inkling of sanity in awarding the deserving candidates. Yes, I call it sanity because the past experiences have only exhibited extreme tomfoolery by them. It was like rubbing my palms in frustration, read anger, on watching the nepotism, read wrongness, going out there in the farcical opera on the stage. I was not alone ….

And so the debate continues.

While some of this debate stems from the fanaticism towards a particular individual or a cult, some is the outcome of the growing realization and discernment of the deserving candidates by the general public. Deserving candidates were there in the past too …..

Despite my new-found fondness for Shah Rukh Khan, I can not uphold the numerous awards bestowed upon him in the past. The case that still rankles me is his ‘Best Actor Award’ for Dil to Pagal Hai. How could you, my dear jury, for such a flat performance brodering on nausea; and how could you distribute the ‘Black Ladies’ as if they were the groceries for the same family. A good performance on one count in a film doesn’t guarantee the greatness of other aspects too in the film. So, the Best Film shouldn’t get Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Song.…keep on reading…. by sheer default. Sadly it happened umpteenth times in the nineties. It makes the other bigger half of Bollywood redundant and dispirited. An award is the paragon of excellence, and nobody knows its importance more than he or she holding it after years of toil. But what if it remained clinged to the same hand over the years?

That’s why I am more than happy with the distribution in the last few years, particularly this year, as they have tried to break that deplorable and detrimental monopoly. Johnny Gaddar – a movie of small budget- found a nomination and won it, while a child actor actually got the Best Actor award, even if Critics. The year’s small starrers like Bheja Fry, Gandhi My Father, Life in a Metro etc. had nominations and wins too. The top four awards were shared to almost different movies based on relevance and quality.

All was not well, but ‘all promises well, if it starts well.” I am giving the list of the winners, and try fitting a member from the biggest blockbuster of last year, ‘Om Shanti Om’, in each of the categories. If you are able to do so, you would have solved this riddle or mystery, whatever you call, of the FilmFare Awards in the nineties.

Filmfare Best Actor - Shahrukh Khan (Chak De India)

Filmfare Best Actress - Kareena Kapoor (Jab We Met)

Filmfare Best Film - Taare Zameen Par

Filmfare Best Director - Aamir Khan (Taare Zameen Par)

Filmfare Critics’ Award For Best Actor - Darsheel Safary (Taare Zameen Par)

Filmfare Critics’ Award For Best Actress - Tabu (Cheeni Kum)

Filmfare Critics’ Award For Best Film - Shimit Amin (Chak De India)

Filmfare Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male) - Irrfan Khan (Life in a… Metro)

Filmfare Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female) - Konkana Sen Sharma (Life in a… Metro)Filmfare Best Lyrics - Prasoon Joshi (Maa - Taare Zameen Par)

Filmfare Best Playback Singer (Male) - Shaan (Jab Se Tere Naina - Saawariya)

Filmfare Best Playback Singer (Female) - Shreya Ghosal (Barso Re - Guru)

Filmfare Best Music Director - A. R. Rahman (Guru)

Filmfare Best Story - Amol Gupte (Taare Zameen Par)

Filmfare Best Screenplay - Anurag Basu (Life in a… Metro)

Filmfare Best Dialogue - Imtiaz Ali (Jab We Met)

Filmfare R. D. Burman Award - Monty Sharma (Saawariya)

Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award - Rishi Kapoor

Filmfare Power Awards - Yash Chopra & Aditya Chopra

Filmfare Best Debut (Male) - Ranbir Kapoor (Saawariya)

Filmfare Best Debut (Female) - Deepika Padukone (Om Shanti Om)

Filmfare Best Special Effects - Red Chillies Entertainment (Om Shanti Om)

Sony Head N Shoulders Fresh Face of the Year Award - Deepika Padukone

Filmfare Best Background Score - A. R. Rahman (Guru)

Filmfare Best Editing - Amitabh Shukla (Chak De India)

Filmfare Best Choreography - Saroj Khan (Barso Re Megha Re - Guru)

Filmfare Best Action - Rob Miller (Chak De India)

Filmfare Best Art Direction - Samir Chanda (Guru)

Filmfare Best Sound - Leslie Fernandes (Johnny Gaddaar)

Filmfare Best Cinematography - Sudhip Chatterjee

Filmfare Best Costumes - Sujata Sharma (Gandhi My Father)

This Ain't Just A Moniker !

Film folklores are very much a part of cinema, and they are what keep adding excitement and spice to the whole current story. No wonders then that we keep reciting lines from DCH or DDLJ. Hey, hold on ! What is DDLJ by the way? Ah! What a buffon! Isn’t DDLJ itself a folklore?

It is indeed, and the whole story about it rests on the shoulders of these four letters-DDLJ. ‘Dilwahe Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge’ – however charming or kitschy the name might be, it doesn’t contain the same aura or power as this acronym. Of course, ‘DDLJ’ is a result of the former, and not the other way round. But people would agree that if it would not have been for this smaller brother, the movie would not have become as indelible as it is now.

Circa 1996, and I too had got amused when I had heard this for the first time. The movie was making great waves amongst the teenagers, and this name had the same romantic feeling attached to it. It was uttered with the a Casanovic effect amongst our group. That was the time for many changes in Indian Cinema, and it also heralded the coming of these sobriquets.

Bollywood, prior to that, didn’t have long names for its movies, so this naming exercise was unheard of. Since then there has been a deluge of these long-drawn names, and hence these sweet nicknames.Even when the name doesn’t warrant that, it has become a fad to shorten it. And why not, because ‘size does matter’. DJ in RDB is not the same as ‘Daljeet Singh’ in ‘Rang De Basanti’.

So, which have been the most emphatic monikers till now? For me, DDLJ leads the pack, closely followed by DCH and K3G. Some of these appellations have been forced ones like K2H2 and KHNH, and so don’t have that star appeal. Also, I feel three lettered monikers have a better alluring effect, such as SRK,SRT, PPR (my name, of course) etc. In extension to all this happening in Bollywood, it might soon become a craze in Hollywood too. Long being derided as copycats, we might become a donor of this weird naming mania. In future, we might be watching POTC-IV, and not the Pirates of the Caribbean- IV.

The Shah Rukh Mania

It is almost surreal for me to see a Bollywood star being revered like God by the western world. But that exactly happened at the Berlinale festival where Shahrukh Khan, the king of Bollywood, was thrown a red-carpet welcome, which he would not have expected or got even in his home country.

SRK, as his famous appellation goes, has been famous from the stretches of desert in Saudi Arabia to the populous world as far as Philippines. But his mania in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and especially Europe has really grown as never before. It is still not of that proportion as that of some of the Hollywood stars. But gauge it considering the fact that he belongs to a region which doesn't speak the same language as theirs ; his culture is far different to theirs in almost every conceivable aspect; and far more than that, he is a brown man, long being held in low light by if not all, then undeniably by some myopic Westerners.

Have a look at the following craze generated upon his arrival at the festival:-

SRK at Berlinale

As per the report, the crowd was half Asian and half non-Asian. His growth of stardom in Germany has a small story behind it. It all started with the screening of his movie 'Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham' on a prime television channel there back in 2005. The Germans had never seen or experienced such emotions erupting out of every possible relation, be it father-son, husband-wife or brotherly. They were instantly moved, despite the fact that they watched it with English subtitles or dubbed in German. Since then his popularity has grown very much, almost to the extent that he is more German than Indian for them.

In return, SRK is also very much appreciative of the fans. His felicity with the words is very well-known, but he was at his suave best at the interview done to promote his film 'OSO' at the Berlinale.

All credit to Shahrukh for making the world his own, but it should also open the eyes of the persons related to Indian movies towards the uncapped Western world market. What we have provided them is a trifling of what we can. There is a plethora of untasted things ready to be lapped up by them. Only if we leave our inferiority-complex and low-attitude about our movies, and promote them there as well as we do in India. Above all, it won't harm much in promoting India as well, will it?