The 2010 Filmfare Awards - held, televised, broadcast later, recorded and viewed even later - are India's premier awards show. They are like India's Oscars. They attract the top stars in Bollywood. They are watched by millions. They are decidedly underwhelming and loopy.
A number of nutty awards were given as usual - although they get less nuttier as the years go by. (Filmfare, I'm miffed by this. If you guys are going to get classy at least don't broadcast at the same time as the Oscars in the US.)
Zoya Akhtar won a best debut award for her direction in
Luck By Chance. Then
Ayan Mukerjee won the same award for his direction in
Wake Up Sid. Because this was an award for best debut, Filmfare split it between men and women. But because two directors won - in a year in which
a woman won Best Director at the Oscars - it implied that the degree of difficulty for directing a film was different between genders. Wah, loopiness randomly happens when you embrace the premise whole-heartedly.
So as always (which means whenever I feel like it) I decided to give out Drift Awards of my own. Here they are.
The Best Paan Beedi Speech
Let's start with music, shall we? You all know what a Paan Beedi song in a movie is, right? Its the song where the men sense an opportunity to run out for Paan or Beedi. They come back, masculinely refreshed, and can get back in the flow of things without worrying about missing any continuity. This year the legendary musical composer
Khayyam won some award - lifetime achievement or something. I can't remember and its not important (we all love Khayyam, award or no award).
Asha Bhonsle came on stage to give the award and made a speech about how cool Khayyam was because he made Asha Bhonsle into a ghazal queen. Then Ashaji remembered that this whole thing was about giving an award to Khayyam and not herself. So she executed that duty promptly.
Then Khayyam launched into a tremendously boring speech about the good old days and his first tankhwaa and suchlike. I saw Asha dozing off for a bit before recovering and snapping her eyes wide. But just when men might have entertained thoughts of bolting out for dhumrpaan, something awesome happened. Khayyam started talking about his work on Umrao Jaan and just like that - out of nowhere - he started hitting on
Rekha! He praised her beauty to the skies in shaayari like prose. Stunned by this reversal of roles, Rekha buried her face in her hands and tears streamed down her cheeks. Ashaji - owner of just as resplendent a career as Rekha's but now being publicly ignored - gave everyone the blood curdling hooded eye look.
This went on until (one of many) host Karan Johar showed the presence of mind to grab Khayyam and haul him off the stage. Hilarity!
The Best Audience Award
The best audience award goes to
Kajol. Why? Well if Kajol were to read this one line she'd burst out laughing.
At the awards, Kajol laughed at just about everything. She laughed loud, enthusiastically, with upwardly knit eyebrows. She made hand movements to indicate her level of entertainment. She lurched sideways with laughter. She threw her head back. She grabbed her neighbors excitedly. That was in the first 10 minutes. The show got funnier for Kajol - although I couldn't tell just by watching it.
The Best Audience Award - Runner Up
A long time ago, you act in a really cool movie (for its time). Your name is
Chunky - that's kind of cute. The movie becomes a hit. The only way is up! You start looking for lead roles.
Then things kind of take a slightly different route. You act in clunker after clunker. You start looking old. You're still called Chunky - only its not that cute anymore, almost kind of sad. Shahrukh Khan makes a joke on national TV about how all women run away from you. You laugh. You keep laughing. After a while you clearly look strained. But hey, its a job!
The Sexiest Aunty Award
This year the competition was tough. There was
Kajol,
Tabu and hot favorite
Vidya Balan. To get this award its not important to just wear a saree or some Ye Olde Latka-Matka Outfit. After all,
Katrina,
Kareena and
Rekha Bhardwaj (who won vocals for
Genda Phool) all came in sarees - and looked hip. No, to win this prestigious award, you have to project a unique fuddy-duddy vibe while still looking gorgeous.
Staving off the killer competition, Vidya Balan won the award for the third time in a row. She did this by making a chotee look older fashioned than it is, wearing ginormous sadhu-sant beads and donning so many colors that the color spectrum didn't have anything on her.
The Parmeshwar Godrej Award
This award is given to the fashion priestess of the show - which is a polite way of saying 'you aren't hot but you do spend a lot of money on fashion so we need to keep you buying'. (You can read more about the award and the wonderful thought behind it
here.) 2008's recipient
Gauri Khan looked terrific this year and avoided the trauma of receiving this award. This left
Rekha holding the bag. Rekha you are the new Parmeshwar Godrej. Kuchh Karo!
Honorary South Indian Award
While needling a bright and witty
R Madhavan,
Shahrukh Khan decided to play a game. "There are so many SOUTH INDIANS in the audience tonight" he said, calling out a few names. "I'd like to learn TAMIL!" Such a willingness to embrace and welcome everyone from the SOUTH - even those born and raised in Mumbai like Madhavan. All the NORTH INDIANS in the house say "BALLE BALLE!" like you should.
The Best Dancer in Gym Shoes Award
You know how the dances go in these shows - everyone poses more than they dance. Because they are wearing some outfit that - given too much shaking - might result in some wardrobe malfunction. Don't dance if you are so done, I say! Fortunately Riteish Deshmukh was at hand. Wearing some brilliant white and pink Nukkad Romeo outfit, the man danced his heart out.
The Anu Malik Shayari Award
Kavita Seth shared a vocals statuette with
Rekha Bhardwaj for the Amit Trivedi composed
Iktara (
Wake Up Sid). She launched into an Anu Malik style ready to wear sher that sounded great but amounted to little (for unclassy people like me anyway).
The Get Me Out of Here Award
AR Rahman sat through the entire ceremony with one expression on his face - Freakin' Bored! When he won for his terrific album
Delhi-6, he tried to grab the statuette and run away. He was called back by SRK and given a mike to speak into. He said some rote stuff and reminded everyone that this was his 25th Filmfare award. Even the shy ones feel the need to be hailed don't they? Then ARR went back to being bored.
The Bad Hair Duo Award
Anu Malik lives through bad hair days every day. Through some tremendous stroke of luck (for me), he got paired with
Sherlyn Chopra who had constructed a flip out of her hair so huge you could land a plane on it. This kept flipping up and down whenever she shook her head. At one point while opening the envelope, I thought Anu might rest his mike on it. (No, really this isn't out of the realm of possibility).
The Track Suit Award
Fast becoming Bollywood's buzzed property,
Prateik Babbar showed up wearing a suit that had Track & Field written all over it. Really, it was dazzling to watch. If you want to make a fashion statement, this is absolutely the correct way to do it.
The Super Enthu Award
Amit Trivedi won for his ground breaking song compositions on
Dev D, came out looking dapper in a suit and looked really excited. For a moment he made me forget just what a circus this show was. Well done, my gujju brother!
The F**k You Chetan Bhagat Award
All through the release of the blockbuster
3 Idiots, controversy about the origin of the story idea behind the movie dogged the film.
Chetan Bhagat, originally involved with the film before falling out with its makers, went public about
how the film's story was based on his book Five Point Someone. The story of the film was credited to
Abhijat Joshi and
Raj Kumar Hirani. Both won the Best Story award at the show - further adding insult to injury for poor Bhagat.
The Sound of Logic Award
When first time director
Nandita Das won for her film
Firaaq, she had this to say: "You never get an award for your first film because you only make your first film once!"
I'll leave you with that profound thought.
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