In its effort to deviate from the expected, and to avoid the inevitable "Black" sweep, the LIC Zee Cine Awards at Mauritius gave away all the three critics' awards to Nagesh Kukunoor's "Iqbal".
Once again Madhur Bhandarkar's original and striking "Page 3" was completely ignored. After its near-obliteration in the Filmfare awards nominations, Bhandarkar didn't even bother to attend the Zee awards Saturday.
Not that he was missed. The star attendance in Mauritius, in spite of a flash hurricane, was impressive. The organisers got dazzling live performances out of Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, who descended on stage from above the audience, and Rani Mukerjee, who had to make do with Arjun Rampal instead of Abhishek Bachchan in the "Chup chup ke" song from "Bunty Aur Babli".
Choreographer Ganesh Hegde sportingly served as a last-minute proxy for Abhishek in the "Bluffmaster" and "Bunty Aur Babli" performances.
But the Bachchans' absence was palpable on that hot sultry afternoon in Mauritius as "Black" once again proved itself the most beautiful.
Best film and best director winner Sanjay Leela Bhansali joined hands with Rani to collect the best actor award on behalf of Amitabh Bachchan.
Lifetime Achievement award winner Rekha turned her honour into a laugh-time achievement when she performed a jig with Shah Rukh on stage to the sound of "Salaam-e-ishq" from "Muqaddar Ka Sikandar". The other lifetime-achievement award winner Rishi Kapoor was more dignified in accepting his award.
But the highlight of the afternoon, a richly deserved tribute to the cinema of Yash Chopra by Shah Rukh, came much too late in the show, after all the awards were over. By then the audience was hot and hungry and in no mood to remain attentive.
There were no real surprises among the winners unless we count Himesh Reshammiya's second award for playback singing in a week as a surprise. Unlike the Filmfare awards, he not only attended the Zee jamboree but also gave a defiant speech.
Shweta Prasad, who received the critics' award for "Iqbal", and Ayesha Kapoor, who won the best supporting actress award for "Black", were the youngest winners of the evening. Pradeep Sarkar who won the award for best debutant director for "Parineeta" was self-mocking about his over-the-hill position for a first-timer's award.
Shiney Ahuja ("Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi") and Vidya Balan ("Parineeta") surprised no one by winning the best debutant's awards, though the inclusion of Konkona Sen Sharma in the newcomers' package was strange considering she had done three films prior to "Page 3".
Maybe they just wanted to be kind to the tragically neglected Bhandarkar film.
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