Considered as the Oscars of Bollywood cinema, it is no secret that the Filmfare awards are the most revered of the lot – as one of the winners rightly said that in spite of his movie’s good run at other awards, his mom wanted him to win the Filmfare! The who’s who of the film fraternity made themselves available for this big night. Held on 29th January (the event started by 9 pm) at the Yash Raj Studios, Andheri, a hoard of celebrities were seen walking the red carpet at this prestigious award show.
Considered the forte of Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan, the Gen Y heartthrobs Ranbir Kapoor and Imran Khan (or ‘RK’ and ‘IK’ as they prefer to call themselves), compered this event and managed to keep the guests highly entertained. Whether it was their filmi entry with a video intro, or Ranbir’s jokes about the Deepika and Sonam’s Koffee With Karan show, or the list of things that have ‘changed’ in Bollywood (‘Pehle Karan Johar, SRK aur Kajol ke saath filmein banate the lekin ab…uhh ab bhi SRK aur Kajol ke saath filmain banate hain!‘ – First Karan Johar used to make films with SRK and Kajol but now…uhh even now he makes films with SRK and Kajol!), the duo managed to keep the audience engaged with their endearing chemistry. The first set of awards, the technical awards, were dominated solely by small budget movies like Udaan, Love Sex aur Dhoka and Do Dooni Char. In fact when Farah Khan came to receive the best choreography award for Sheila Ki Jawani, she thanked Udaan for not having a song in their movie and not being nominated and said that she was actually excited that her kids had won their first award at Sports Day! Poonam Dhillon, Shriya Saran, Payal Rohatgi, Kabir Bedi, Atul Kulkarni, Alka Yagnik gave away the awards for the 1st segment.
Sonu Niigam enthralled everyone with his rendition of the popular Titanic song ‘My Heart Will Go On’. Sonu said that there are many people in this industry who he admires and one of those people is Yash Chopra, he then went over to him and asked him about his continued excellence in this field. Dedicating the song ‘Eh Meri Johra Jabeen’ (from Waqt) to him, he then moved on to sing ‘Main Hoon Na’ and asked his close dear friends Farah Khan and Anu Malik to join in and sing. SRK nostalgically looked on, and then later joined in to lip sync to their very famous song ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’. At his wittiest best, when SRK was asked by Sonu how it felt to be in this industry for so long he replied, “There are two answers. One composed by my wife which is that I am highly obliged to be amongst you all. The other is mine which is that I was born to be a star!” Shotgun Shatrugan Sinha stated that it was his will to maintain his distinct style which made him so popular – “Prove yourself better than the best or prove yourself different than the rest!” But the best part was when Sonu managed to get the ever gorgeous Rekha to sing to Dil Cheez Kya Hai – which she did amazingly well! – and she made him dance to this very song!
The 2nd set of awards was hosted by the witty Vir Das and the lovely Prachi Desai (who looked cute in a pink gown). Funny thing though was that while SRK was hurrying away to escort his wife Gauri back to the auditorium, the LCD screen happened to play the Aman Ki Asha advertisement (which shows the Pakistani folks conveying through Dumb Charades to play the song from DDLJ). As soon as he heard his name on the screen, he stopped in his tracks to see what the ad was about and couldn’t stop himself from smiling! Gulzar too couldn’t stop himself from wittily commenting on his Best Lyricist Award trophy. The Black Lady who has gone through various ‘weight reductions’ in the past year was restored to her original weight which led Gulzar to comment: Badi Muddat ke baad mili ho tum, yeh jo thodi si bhar gayi ho tum, yeh vazan tumpe achcha lagta hai! (Have met you after a long time. The little weight that you seem to have put on suits you perfectly well!). Great singer Manna Dey who was awarded the Lifetime achievement award could not make it to the event due to ill health but Vidya Balan went to his residence to hand over the trophy to him.
Golmaal 3 managed to win the only category it was nominated in – the best scene of the year – and Kajol happily went up to the stage to receive the award for her husband’s movie – while compere Karan Johar tried to make her give the award to Arshad Warsi who was present. “Behave yourself Kajol,” he admonished her jokingly.
RK and IK were back again as the netas of the ‘dance’ party solemnly swearing to do those things which actual politicians don’t – ‘like spreading false rumors for publicity, changing camps’! While RK made sure that he didn’t stop pulling the leg of the newly married Imran (“Tu saala shaadi ke alava kuch sochta hi nahi” – You don’t seem to think of anything other than marriage), they made sure that everyone repeated their mantra “Kya Aap hamare saath hain…Haan Hum Tumhare saath hai.” (Are you with us?…Yes we are with you!) Kareena’s Best supporting actress award was picked up by KJo since the actress was not there because she is shooting in Pune, while Ronit Roy was ecstatic at winning the Best Supporting Actor.
Priyanka Chopra who performed on ‘Dola Re’ (Devdas), dedicated the performance to the dhak dhak girl Madhuri Dixit (who by the way looked truely radiant). Madhuri, who completed her 25 years in the industry, was awarded a trophy by none other than her onscreen Dola Re partner and Bachchan Bahu Aishwarya Rai. Thanking everyone responsible for her success, she said that her kids were proud of her and excused her long speech by saying that 10 minutes is comparatively a short time compared to her 25 years – “Wow! I am 25 years old!” Imran seemed at a loss for words at seeing his childhood crush “whom I wanted to marry” Madhuri. On the other hand Ranbir couldn’t help himself from poking fun at Priyanka over her latest IT Raid fiasco. Introducing her performance as the ” ‘IT’, I mean the ‘It’ girl! “, he said that hers was a million dollar performance. “And by million dollar we mean that her performance was million dollar, not that we paid her million dollar for the performance!” he quipped.
The lovely Sonakshi Sinha, who received her best debut award from Preity Zinta, was asked by both RK and IK to take an oath on the Filmfare magazine. Seeing their endless list, she boomed ‘Khamosh’ and thanked her parents for the award saying that their genes had worked out in her favor. Male Debutant Ranveer Singh was asked to take an oath on the mag with his photo on the cover to which he joked, “Tum log mujhe meri hi kasam khane ko keh rahe ho!” (You both are making me swear on myself!). Ranbir who asked debut director winner Maneesh Sharma (Band Baaja Baarat) to sign him for his next movies was met with the reply, “Pichla saal yaad karo!!” (Remember last year??!!)
IK and RK’s spoof of Guzaarish was probably one of their best segments. IK, as the magician Ethan (totally resembling Hrithik!), and RK , hilarious as Ash’s Sofia, performed enough ‘tricks’ to keep the audience rolling with laughter (we couldn’t help but notice that RK kept on giggling every few minutes – no prizes for guessing why that was so!). Next up was Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh who rocked the stage with performances of their songs from Band Baaja Baarat – ‘Aadha Ishq’, ‘Tarkeebein’, ‘Dum Dum’ and ‘Ainvayi Ainvayi’. Anushka who later emceed the Critics award segment seemed a little self-conscious but then it was her first time hosting the Filmfare awards.
Rani Mukherjee in a sexy violet gown was happy to give away the Critics Best Actress award to her No One Killed Jessica co-star Vidya Balan as well as the Critics Best Actor award to her childhood crush Rishi Kapoor. Talking about how he was hesitant to do Do Dooni Chaar, he stated that what finally convinced him was when the newbie director told him, “My story is the hero.” SRK gave a dedication to his source of inspiration – the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. Talking about how he tried to score good marks in order to make his parents take him to watch Deewaar he said, “Mr. Amitabh doesn’t know this, but joh thoda bahut main padha hoon who unhiki badolat hai!” (“Mr. Amitabh doesn’t know this, but the little bit that I got educated is because of him!”). Always ready to crack witty liners, SRK said that Jayaji would probably be angry with for saying all this but he asked Bachchan to “unhe sambhal lena” (handle her). Big B was awarded a trophy for his exceptional 40 years in the industry by none other than Yash Chopra himself.
The final round of awards was the most awaited, it came as no surprise that IK and RK came to stage dressed up as Dabangg‘s Salman and My Name Is Khan‘s SRK (we don’t know SRK’s reaction since he was backstage readying up for his performance and Salman chose to skip this event). Commenting on the famous scene from Dabangg‘s climax, IK said that his shirt was all wrong as his buttons were not undone and his shirt had still not torn on its own accord: “Ek baar meri shirt ne commitment kiya toh who meri bhi nahi sunti!”(Once my shirt gives its commitment then it doesn’t even listen to me!) RK who kept on repeating MNIK’s popular dialogue “My Name is Khan and I am very, very smart” was met by a sharp reply from Imran, “Itna smart hai toh Ganguly ko drop kyun kiya! (from IPL)” (If you are so smart then why did you drop Ganguly!) . Karan Johar, who won the Best director award said that he had got his first Filmfare award for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai after which he was just able to emcee the show. He was happy that after 12 years he had managed to win a Filmfare award again and moved on from “and the nominees are” to “and the winner is.”
SRK and Madhuri gave the audience the best performance of the night and made everyone wish that they should come together onscreen again. Performing to ‘Main Agar Kahoon’, ‘Tujh Main Rab Dikhta Hai’, ‘Tere Naina’, ‘Maar Daala’ and ‘Arere Arey Yeh Kya Hua’, their chemistry was sizzling and the performance looked totally effortless and from the heart. Kudos to both of them! Timeless beauty Rekha gave away the Best actress award to Kajol and the Best actor award to SRK (not until IK, RK AND SRK had performed MINK’s trademark dance step!).
While the nominations and the winners have yet again received tremendous criticism, it was without doubt a star-filled night (quite literally) to be cherished for a long time!
