Why Bollywood award shows can't be taken too seriously

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Posted: 9 years ago

While watching the recent edition of Golden Globe Awards and the Stardust and Filmfare proceedings, I couldn't help but pity our film awards to some-serious-non-definable levels. While we managed to ape some parts of western culture for the whole spot-on award ceremonies and the blingy glamorous red-carpet appearances, we forgot to take the most important cue from them; to actually honour those who deserve the laurels and to keep the agenda right.

Given the number of award shows in Bollywood, it's sensible to think that most of the deserving' talent- established and budding- will be acknowledged. But wait. Did I just forget to mention that each and every award show hands out the same award for the same criteria and if not all, some to the same people too.

While major chunk of the real talent is scrapped in the nomination level itself, some big names take home the awards for varied reasons that are beyond our comprehension. For most of our award ceremonies, as much as the final winner surprises us, it's an even tougher fight to find a second deserving nominee. Although, there will always be 5-6 catchy nominations from a long list of people they might want to please, or those the organizers want to thank for some previous gesture or just utilise the nomination-card to convince the celebrities to actually attend the show

In a recent edition of a 'prestigious' film fraternity awards show, Sonam Kapoor was nominated for the Best Actor (Female) category for Dolly ki Doli' while there was no mention of the much deserving Richa Chadda for 'Masaan' or Kalki Koechlin for Margarita with a Straw'. In another award show, she was even honoured with the Best Actress (Popular Choice) for her 'royal' film 'Prem Ratan Dhan Paaro'. It's equally surprising to see that some out-of-the-box movies including 'Drishyam', 'Talvar', 'Titli', 'Angry Indian Goddesses' and 'Masaan' didn't make it big this time.

So if Big B does a two minute cameo in some random film, for which he might not even be expecting a mention, he's sure to receive a special mention with an even special award as per our traditions. (Big B, we aren't denying your credibility here. We love you!)

This might be a little brutal to write but we're so busy focusing on who's performing on which item number, wearing what label, appearing with whom that with time we've just forgotten what award shows are for. Staged-scripted anchoring which anchors try to portray as impromptu' (only making it worse), peppy dance sequences, big names-big speeches and oh, a l-o-n-g list of sponsors before every category, ad-break and performances are what our awards shows actually constitute of.

If even half of the thought that goes into the naach-gaana sequences, actually goes to deciding the final awardees, our shows might just get a little more worthy. Why can't we have award shows that really matter, the ones which we can actually call credible? Why can't we have laurels that actually speak for the year that went by? Why can't we have shows where critic awards don't end up looking like consolation prizes? Why can't we have trophies given on the basis of only what the category demands?