Show and Tell

The 38th annual Filmfare awards show on TV was a big let-down.

By conducting a Hindi film award show in English, were you trying to ape the Oscars? Their show is for English language films and shown worldwide. What you could have aped from the Oscars is the technical perfection. Simi announced that the show was being telecast live to 343 million viewers; most of them must be Hindi film viewers and would be quite familiar with the language. Some years ago at your show, Jackie Shroff was asked in English, about the Hindi film hero. And he replied, “Hindi film hero? To Hindi mein bol na, yaar!”

There was absolutely no coordination between the presenters and the award winners. At times, the winners would land up on the stage much before the presenters. A case of putting the cart before the horse? If an award-winner was absent, it was not your fault, but when presenters who’re called upon don’t appear, then that’s an unpardonable lapse on your part.

Simi hogged most of the time, even asking questions to many award-winners when it was apparent that they wanted to be left alone to express their feelings at their moment of triumph.

When you present a show on such a large scale, the mistakes get magnified. There were plenty of breaks in the telecast; major power breakdowns, shaky visuals, faulty video and ad breaks. Do take care of the glitches the next time around.

(This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in Filmfare magazine in 1993)