The event for the evening starts off with the host or hostess, or nowadays, both, greeting the wonderful audience for gracing the occasion and the organizers and the committee for managing such a fantastic event (already?).  The opening speech is followed by the ‘first performance of the evening, the lovely, scintillating ….’. After the fantastic dance number by the first star of the evening, the hosts come on stage and present the first ‘presenters’ of the evening….damnnn… you were having so much fun, and now these 2 boring people come on stage to interrupt the beautiful performances for what….yeah one forgot, we were not watching a live show of the stars, we are witnessing the awards ceremony of some company or the other…..

Isn’t this what the awards shows of today have been reduced to? A noted film critic, recently wrote how desperate the actors were nowadays to get atleast one, if not more of these awards since the award gave their work the publicity which the film could not. The critic even said that a 30 something star was so desperate due to his 2 major flops that he was now being featured on the cover of two magazines who give out awards and even offered to perform free at some of the awards if he would get the Best Actor’s trophy.

There is a certain amount of shallowness which has been slowly creeping into our awards ceremonies of today. Every media baron wants to have their own awards. There is no eligibility criteria required here to give awards. Unlike our distant cousins in Hollywood, in Bollywood, anyone can have an awards ceremony of their own. I believe now Ekta Kapoor is starting her own awards…what be the reason behind it….cannot be the royal snub given by all the awards to her OUATIM, which for the record, is one of the best films of 2010 according to me . Lets view some of these award ceremonies, from a layman’s persepective…this is what The Y Factor is all about…

Star Screen Awards
A tie up between The Express Group & Star TV, this night kicks off the awards season for the year. So they always have the first mover advantage, technically speaking. Having started a new pairing of hosts since last year of SRK & Shahid, they followed up the same act this year. Unfortunately, this year’s act was not a patch on the stupendous performance last year. Last year when the Star Screen Awards were presented, the show was a fantastic entertaining evening. The chemistry between Shahid & Shahrukh, the jokes, the enigmatic presence of Amitabh Bacchhan were a treat. This year, however, the entertainment was purely okay. Besides Salman’s performance, on and off stage, it was a total let down. Shahid seemed totally disinterested in the happenings on stage, leaving SRK to take over the show completely. The so called tribute to actresses of yesteryears was an eyesore. Earlier they were known as Screen Videocon Awards, now they are Karbonn Mobiles Star Screen Awards. Thank you Mr. A. Raja. The awards attempts to position themselves as India’s first awards that are given by the film fraternity to the film fraternity by way of a jury, as opposed to the other “popular” awards. The Screen Awards are different from other “popularity” awards; the entire nomination and selection for the Screen Awards is done by a panel of distinguished professional from the industry. And the criterion for winning is professional excellence, not just popular view. Also, they claim to be the only Awards ceremony in India which has involved the Executive Director and the Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. What this means, God alone knows. Because they don’t seem to follow any similar guidelines.

Apsara Awards
What started off being touted as ‘India’s Oscars’ has become just another player in the game. Same snazzy stage, still trying to figure out a host, hence the now not-so-funny Sajid Khan hosts. They have had quite a bumpy ride till date, starting off in 2004 and having Their Katrina act this year was a disaster. Only difference being, the act by Priyanka Chopra honouring women power, Nari Shakti.

Zee Awards
Again owned by the media baron and Esselworld owner Mr. Subhash Chandra, no worries about money here either. Started in 1998 in Mumbai, they took to foreign shores 2004 onwards. Being held in Dubai, Mauritius, Malaysia, London and this year, after a hiatus of 2 years, in Singapore. Their sponsors keep changing regularly, hence what started off as Lux Zee Cine Awards, then shifted to Fair View Zee Cine Awards, followed up with Pan Parag Zee Cine Awards. Somehow I guess they got health conscious, so they became Sunfeast Zee Cine Awards, in 2006, followed by Aditya Birla Group ZCA in 2007, went back to Lux ZCA in 2008 and today are Marina Bay Sands ZCA. Phew. Their marketing team must be having a hard time. What is peculiar about this year’s award winning for the Best Actor was that it was won by Hrithik Roshan for Guzaarish. I loved Guzaarish, but if he has won by ‘viewer’s choice’ and the majority people voted for him, how come this majority did not translate at the box office and the film became one of the 10 biggest flops of 2010? Or is it that the people who vote, actually do not translate into an equal number of people seeing the film  in the cinema halls?

IIFA
Presented by the International Indian Film Academy to honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in Bollywood, the Hindi language film industry. Instituted in 2000, the ceremony is held in different countries around the world every year. This award ceremony has been organised by Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt Ltd – one of India’s premier event management and entertainment agency. Its initial claim to fame has been its brand Ambassador, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, who parted ways with them last year. IIFA is the first awards ceremony in the current scheme of things, to have their awards at exotic international locations. Introducing at The Millennium Dome in London, Sun City, Genting, Johannesburg, Singapore, Amsterdam, Dubai, Sheffield, Bangkok, Macau, Colombo and now in Toronto. They were the first awards ceremony where the tagline ‘Good Evening London…”, “Good Evening Bangkok” and all such pleasantries wishing the local audience of the respective town became famous. Now it is there almost everywhere. Their hosting pair consists of Boman Irani & Ritesh Deshmukh, very good jokes amongst them.

Filmfare
Undoubtedly the most coveted award of the lot, hopefully, this is India’s oldest award. Starting in 1954 and initially referred to as  The Clares Awards, after the editor of Times of India, Clare A. Mandy.  That journey from Metro Cinema to Shanmukhananda Hall and now to Yash Raj Studios has been quite an illustrious one at that. What started off as 5 awards is now at 37 awards. We know whom to thank for that. They have dropped SRK & Saif and have moved on to younger blood in their hosts, Ranbir Kapoor & Imran Khan. The last time they hosted, Imran was not a patch on Ranbir. Hope last night was better.

The reason why I take so much of your time on the background of these award ceremonies is just to strengthen my point, that in India, anyone can start an award and also that one has an idea as to how these awards tick. The award ceremonies of today, to quote Sajid Khan ‘this is meant for television entertainment..’. The ‘live’ performances by the stars, are no more live. They are videos of their performances recorded earlier and shown to the live audience via large screens. Reason being? No time for too many rehearsals could be one. But actually, when the stars perform live, they take a lot of time to get back in their glamorized avatar, and at times used to miss their award!

If you have not realized by now, the in your face footage of the stars that one sees, sitting in the audience, are basically stock shots taken sometime earlier in the evening and is just being played for the audiences’ voyeuristic pleasure. If you do not agree, please do see the recently televised Screen & Apsara awards. There is this only 1 shot of Salman Khan which has been used for majority of the times they have seen him sitting in the audience. Be it SRK, Katrina or Ash on stage. Likewise whenever they show people clapping and cheering, they keep showing repeat stuff. Again for example, again in a recently concluded awards show, Bhushan Kumar was shown sitting next to a person clapping repeatedly, the camera angle was a front shot always, but when the person was announced to come on stage and they shot him through a side angle, he was sitting with someone totally different, and after the award, it was back to Bhushan Kumar and his clapping! Haven’t you noticed the blank stare on the face of the Bachchan family, when Rekha is on stage or good ol’ Vivek when Ash or Salman are on stage? Can you imagine the situation in real time, Aishwariya Rai walks up on stage and the cameraman goes right upto Salman for a close up of his smile! Can you imagine what will happen to that cameraman? The Badshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, himself claimed to have been a victim of this when in 2001 Hrithik was on stage for the first time at an award ceremony and the camera showed SRK grimacing, trying to show to the audience that how upset he was? Was he?

Another ‘item number’ which has now gone sour at all the award ceremonies is the good OLD Rekha! Although it was fun to see this diva on screen with her partly off shoulder blouse, hair open on one side, usually a pastel/ gold saree, and that pout. But now it l seems that she is stuck in a time warp of 1981, the year Umrao Jaan released. Post which the entire industry seems to have forgotten her! All they speak about is Umrao Jaan. Be it SRK & Shahid recently at Screen or any other award ceremony where she comes to perform or either present an award. That brings me to my next point. Something which has been bothering me since some years now. The list of ‘presenters’ at times have no credibility to offer that particular award! A couple of daily soap actors, (with all due respect) came to present the best singer awards recently! Outrageous! No wonder Rahat did not come to receive the award. Especially if one has someone from ‘Oscars’ on their board or whatever, the basic principle that Oscar’s follow is that the previous year’s best actor winner comes to announce the current year’s best actress and vice versa! But then, I guess they do not have sponsors!

Forget the entire televised experience. Like I was speaking to someone last night at one of the 2 clashing bar nites of the ‘affluent’ clubs in South Mumbai. The gentleman was praising the performance of Salman Khan at one of the recent awards wherein he danced to all songs of Dabangg and ended it with Sheila! That person was thrilled! When we later spoke on what he felt about the awards that night, his quick retort was ‘what awards re! I was watching the stars perform, I don’t know who won!’ That sort of sums it up as to how the audiences perceive these ‘coveted’ awards ceremonies.

Lets get into the merits of the Awards now. It is no secret now, that the nominations and awards can be swayed by the respective lobbies of the ‘powers to be’ of Bollywood. For example, giving the awards of ‘The most powerful production house’ to YRF for years wherein they only delivered flops instead of the more deserving UTV who have not only delivered more hits but also ventured into different kinds of cinema! And what does this award mean also? 

Star Screen recently, gave the following awards :  Ajay Devgn (Best Performer ??????????) Shahrukh Khan (Best Actor Popular Choice) & Salman Khan (Best Actor). So out of 5 nominations, you have kept the 3 biggest stars of the year happy! Thank God, Aamir did not have a release in 2010!

They also gave best music to Sajid Wajid for Dabangg, Shankar Ehsaan Loy for MNIK & Pritam was given Most Popular Music for OUATIM! Again 3/5! So the general feeling that most viewers who do follow the awards get is ‘sabko khush kar diya’. In my earlier predictions article, I had mentioned that who wins the awards is all about which lobby is the strongest. Aamir refuses to even come for them, Ajay has joined the bandwagon too. Salman, different as always, will come, perform but not take the awards. So when the Best Actor nominations were being announced, he quietly walked away, leaving Arbaaz to collect on his behalf. So neither did he receive the award, nor did he insult the veteran Yash Chopra by sitting there and not going to collect.

Zee Cine Awards: Best Actor Male – Shahrukh Khan, Jury Award for Best Actor – Hrithik Roshan. Zee has some genuinely peculiar awards like:
- Queen of Hearts Award
- True Indian Beauty Award
- Superstar of the Year Male/Female
- Dynamic Duo
- Special Award for Outstanding contribution to International Cinema?
- Special Award for Outstanding Performance Male/Female
- Zenith Power Team Award
- Queen of Bollywood
- British Indian Actor Award
- Forever Diva Award

Can you imagine, if they had to give the above awards annually, how many ‘Queen of Bollywoods’ would they find? Or would they call Gauri Khan every year? Why does the Special Award for Outstanding Performance not given annually? Or was it only to be given in 2002?

Filmfare on the other hand wants to be snooty. They had the worst show last year in terms of entertainment and the awards, well! Leave aside personal fan following here, but can anyone in their right senses tell me, why and how come Milan Luthria does not feature in the final 5 nominations of Filmfare for Once Upon A Time in Mumbai?  If one can have 6 nominations for Best Music, since the competition was so tough that Mr. Pillai and team could not zero down to 5, why couldn’t the same exception have been made for OUATIM. I loved ‘Munni’ and think it will be the best choreographed piece for some time to come. But nominating Mamta Sharma over Tulsi Kumar again for Tum Jo Aaye, OUATIM, does seem a bit funny. To make matters worse, Mamta won the award and shared with Sunnidhi for ‘Shiela Ki Jawaani’.  Deserving? Male playback again, wonder why Rahat got skipped for his wonderful ‘Tu Na Jaane’ from Anjaana Anjaani, whilst Adnan & Shankar made it to the list for an otherwise not so popular song from MNIK. Thank God he atleast won, even though for Ishqiya.  How does one explain the exclusion of Prakash Jha & Raajneeti fromt the Best Director & Best Film nominations? Well if you want to give the TOP 3 Awards (Actor/Actress Director) to MNIK, you have to play around with the nominations. Inconsistency marks their nominations and shows that no one, is bigger than the stars and their lobbies. No wonder Ekta Kapoor is starting her own Film Awards now. From the just announced list of winners, Udaan deserves every bit of credit it got. Head bowed to Anurag Kashyap.

There are certain actors who are known to be ruling the media due to their affinity towards them. Some manipulate them. Whilst others interact with them only for pre-release interviews. The stars agree to host/ present/ perform at the awards depending upon either their upcoming films (Priyanka Chopra at Zee, just before 7 Khoon Maaf) or to remind people for the last year’s films (Shahid Kapoor for Kaminey in 2010). Just wish all these ‘television shows’ stop acting as brand ambassadors for venues who are hosting their events and soon start focusing on trying to award the people who genuinely deserve it.

Please bear in mind, there are no prejudices involved behind this piece, but a layman’s view on the business of awards ceremonies.

By Yusuf Poonawala

YusuF Poonawala, is an independent writer, who authors The Y Factor. Explore his passion for movies with reviews and everything around them.