56th Filmfare Awards: Flattery at its best!

I am an avid movies fan. No doubt about it. 30 years on planet earth and there is not a good movie that I would have missed on earth. I have seen Hindi, Tamil, English and Marathi movies the most as these are the ones I relish and understand completely. Have also seen Bengali, Punjabi, Oriya, Malayalam and Telugu movies with subtitles during the “Door Darshan” days, when the only escape from a Sunday afternoon study session was to watch a regional language movie without understanding “head or tail” of it! Off late, with a lot of spare time and options for experimentation, I have also added Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Yugoslavian, Russian, Spanish, Brazilian, British, Scottish, Irish, Austrian, Vietnames, Iranian, Iraqi, Egyptian, German, Swedish movies to that list of exotic movies seen. When you watch a foreign language movie, it requires a lot of patience to study the body language, mannerisms, the surroundings of the scene and simultaneously reading the subtitles in English and finally enjoy the movie. I have never been disappointed.

Apart from movies, have also been an avid watches of award functions – especially for Indian movies and more specifically – Filmfare Awards. I have almost grown up watching the “Black Lady” being doled out to an army of actors who have entertained us with gay abandon. I have also lived through all those “Thank you” speeches and hearing this dialogue at least umpteen times – “I was made for movies right from the time I was a kid and figured out walking by my two feet. In the bathroom, I have held the soap bar on my hands and practiced my thank you speech for the award for 20 years…and glad to receive this today after so many years. This is for you XYZ”, where the XYZ  can be mom, dad, wife, his pet crow, favorite pair of underwears or whatever! Emotions are a strange thing. They can make normal life look magical. Full respect to the capabilities of the actors and the pleothra of technical teams like Directors, Stunt Manager, Spot Boys, Make up artists, Lyricists and others. They make us forget our miseries through the movies and entertain us.  

In return to their entertainment we adorn the stars of these movies with adulation. Adulation can either be  taken on one’s stride..the difficult part or lead to a self inflated ego...the easy path to self adulation.  It is this force of self ego and "i am better than the best" attitude which is getting bigger amongst today’s actors from Bollywood. Everybody wants an award and if rumor mills are to be believed...almost everyone buys an award. There are islands of powers in these spaces of ego centers. Some of these prominent islands are the Bachhan camp, Khan Camp, Kapoor Camp, Chopra Camp or the recently added “Kumar” camp. 

Each of these camps is boisterous in its own rights and having a tower of ego, that needs to be regularly stroked. They also needed to be given “special mentions”, “special awards” if they can’t be nominated or be winning in a select category.  If you watch any of the awards - especially the most recent 56th Filmfare awards, you always see worship of three centers of powers for no rhyme or reason. In Hindu religion, its just like worshipping “Brahma Vishnu Maheshwara” or saying a “Sri Ganesh” before starting something new. The three power centers worshipped are “Mr Shah Rukh Khan” (SRK), “Mr. Amitabh Bachchan” and “Mr. Yash Chopra”. The worship is either through awards which they don’t deserve (SRK did'nt deserve the Best Actor award for My name is Khan. Mr. Bachhan got an award for completing 40 years in Bollywood. What the heck…40 years is a milestone? How many have already reached that before Mr. Bachhan?) or special mentions of Mr. Chopra that don’t have any merit  (of film industry intermittently being thankful to Mr. Chopra almost adorning him with the role of a living father of Indian film industry).

Mr. Bachchan in his own right – gets the accolades and appreciations and yet tries hard to appear modest. While I say this, I would like to clarify that I am one of the most ardent of Amitabh’s fans right from childhood …having watched even shoddy films like “MARD” 17 times! Not to forget apart from this Khuda Gawah, Jaadugar, Toofan, Shehenshah. Mr. SRK - is a great improviser when it comes to talking and being spontaneous and trying to be funny and intelligent - no doubt about that. The most irritating part is his attitude at times which is very oversmartish and the desperate attempt to be nice. 

I strongly believe that the pre-condition for big stars before accepting invite for any event is – “Award for any category for sure”, “Kiss my ass through adulations intermittently” , “Personal choice of seating in the audience..usually the first row” and of course “Money..money..money”. This unwanted flattery, sycophancy really looks too artificial to be true. 

It just shows that all the Filmfare awards and shows are actually scripted and directed by these actors. Through these functions, they can continue holding onto their “make believe world” and continue fooling the audience like us. No wonder some folks who already realized it – Amir Khan, Ajay Devgan, Nana Patekar and now Salman Khan are no longer attending these events. 

While I hate this flattery and sycophancy, I know I won’t be able to cross my heart and swear - never watch the awards function again. I will for sure watch another award function. That’s the true Indian fan on Bollywood…its in his blood to criticize, but still birthright to watch “Ego massaging award shows”, “flop movies”. This is because he loves “Bollywood”, its movies and actors and will never let it down!