This year's filmfare awards reinstated the old fact about this most popular of cine awards in bollywood.It is populist and often contrived.The awards in itself are not a patch on the global one's;themselves gullible to entrappings as displyed recently, it at least has the guts to say that look, we know what the public likes, so we shower only the viewers choices with the statuettes. A notable ommission though would be Ghajini.This blockbuster of the year was given a cold treatment, pray why, filmfare?because it's a southern remake?oh! so you don't like regional makers to enter your esteemed territory and run havoc. Ghajini went on to shatter record after record, the style statement of sorts it created was a sidey bonus, and both went unnoticed, unrelenquished, Amir's brilliant portrayal notwithstanding.Had this been a 'homegrown' production, bollywood would have given it the maximum trophies. Anyways, a perfect compliment to last year's best female lead in Priyanka Chopra has been delivered; an excellent selection. Roshan Jr was a bad choice altogether for best actor. If not Amir for his short term memory loss afflicted role, then Shahrukh deserved it for his double role in RNBDJ.
In the music category, the choice of A R Rehman for Jane tu...was poor, it should have gone to him, but for Jodha Akbar.Best film was a dissapointing and agonisingly callous choice in 'Jodha Akbar', 'Fashion' deserved it hands down.The second female lead in 'Fashion', played by Kangana, and rightly awarded for best supporting actress providing a little consolation. This acid tongued (pun intended) comment on the model-designer scenario with the whole lot of cliches, was by far the finest example of direction and production. It richly deserved to win the maximum trophies, including best film. Vocal merit awards again could have gone any which way, no singer making much of an impact, 'haule haule' by Sukhwinder, which won for best male playback, in particular was an odd choice, he doesn't even sound close to Shahrukh. The rest of the categories are technical and hardly scrutinised by the masses, 'oye lucky....oye' bagging the best dialogue award, is seconded by yours truly.A number of award ceremonies are on the way in the coming months, each with its own set of prejudices and fallacies, a few more bloomers would be witnessed, in the end no one is likely to complain. They just want to watch the great Indian tamasha unfold on the stage near them, clap for the winner, encourage the losers to hold their breath on to the next round of trophies. Something always comes by in a decent filmy year. There is one for every one, even for the perpetual absentees (read Amir Khan).Or if all else fails, 'have money will buy' is the sure shot winner(read......nothing).The legend of playback, Kishore Kumar, waited 26 years for his first filmfare trophy.An old issue of the magazine by the same name carries the year by year account of the legacy of Filmfare awards, search for it, buy it, it's worth a dekko. One finds exellence, passion and integrity on those pages.Now that is exactly what the awards these days do not honour.Ask Amir Khan.