Sight & Sound
Mess of film awards
Amita Malik

India has so many film and TV awards nowadays and most of them are so well presented on TV that one would have thought that what was being described as the best for weeks would certainly be something extraordinary. But, alas, I have yet to see a more shoddy or messy coverage than that of IIFA awards in Singapore.

On the one hand, there was Farooque Sheikh with an English-speaking co-anchor called, I think, Sruti and on the other hand there was Mandira Bedi standing at the top of a staircase and she kept sending us down the red carpet to Chuman Das. And that is where the terrible mess started. Obviously inexperienced and overawed by the occasion, Chuman was simply unable to cope. She lost her head, her breath, her questions and almost her voice. Unable to cope with the noise and crowds and celebrities, she spoke in a nervous high-pitched voice. It was always one fixed question, which naturally got amused smiles or a patient hearing and the same answer. She was so excited that she overlooked important guests like Subhas Chandra of Zee. She only zeroed in on familiar stars from Mumbai. No, it was not TV’s finest hour. It must have been extremely frustrating for viewers from all over the world. It would have been far better if some film personalities of experience had handled the running commentaries and also the interviews. In fact Farooque Sheikh and Mandira Bedi should have been in charge of the reporting. I hope arrangements for coverage will be better next time.

I stumbled by accident into a serial by and hopefully for children called Just Mohabbat and must admit that I liked it tremendously. Both the stern school mam, I think it was Veena Sikri in disguise, and the little boy being punished played their roles to perfection. I liked the note of dissent on the part of the schoolchildren and the serious and sympathetic way in which other teachers discussed the question of discipline from different angles. It was also the week that school examination results came out and there were thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions on the comparative merits of public and government schools.

Spokespersons of public schools were more balanced and generous in their comparisons than the government schoolteachers, who were a little righteous and too self-congratulatory.

Well, the first week of the new government led to some predictable panel discussions, interviews, chat shows with audiences and the rest. The NDA stars were on the defensive and the new Congress and other stars, notably the Left, got more space, not to speak of P. Chidambaram who was in full steam — he is extremely good on TV. It was interesting to find a chastened Chandrababu Naidu and a sheepish-looking Narendra Modi facing the cameras. While Naidu faced the camera with dignity, Modi was mostly looking downwards or the other way. Fascinating.

I rediscovered the joy of watching a feature film on TV sitting at home after over 40 years of film reviewing for newspapers by going to large, packed halls. I saw once again with great delight Notting Hill, featuring Hugh Grant (shy and endearing) and Julia Roberts at her natural best in one of those lovely comedies about, what else, but love. And I also caught up with Baghban, somewhat marred by a bad reception. Certainly Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini have proved that with superfine acting and a good script, Indian audiences are more than willing to get away from formula or only young love films. There is a moral in all this: let the NRIs lap up the mush and let more mature audiences in India welcome more mature films.