 "Goof-ups, chaos galore at OTTplay Awards & SIIMA Awards, Vidya Balan gets our award for most confused actor of the year")
This weekend was a celebration of pandemonium at two award functions in Bengaluru and Mumbai. The 10th South Indian International Movie Awards (SIIMA) wins the award for The Most Disorganized Award function of the year.
The two-day event was a disaster on the red carpet itself, with fans of the south Indian stars (Telugu and Kannada only) taking over the venue. Ranveer Singh , who has never done a film in any south Indian language, was invited. He turned up for a few minutes and was jostled and even slapped accidentally (by his own bodyguard, if you please).
It was unimaginable chaos, worse than anything ever witnessed at award events in Mumbai. Coming to the awards themselves, _Pushpa The Rise_ rightfully walked away with most of the awards. Weirdly enough, the best actress award was given to Pooja Hegde for a Telugu flop film called Most Eligible Bachelor.
Pooja Hegde was apparently a last-minute replacement for Rashmika Mandanna , who was to get the best actress award for her feisty performance in Pushpa. Politics at the awards is not peculiar to Bollywood.
Ranveer Singh, who added considerably to the chaos by his unexpected presence, was awarded for being the most popular Bollywood actor in the south. Really? Is Ranveer really more popular in the south than Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan ? An eminently controvertible claim.
While Ranveer was romancing the mob in Bengaluru at SIIMA, in Mumbai, Vidya Balan created her own chaos at the OTTplay Awards, where she was given the critics’ award for best actress in Jalsa. Well deserved, I would say. But Vidya was on her own trip. She went on stage and gave a thank you speech for another film Sherni, a goof-up that left the organizers embarrassed and the audience amused.
There is a lesson to be learnt from Vidya’s faux pas: please take the awards more seriously. I don’t think Nutan or Shabana Azmi ever got confused on stage, in spite of winning multiple awards during the same year. You can’t insult the awards by not even keeping track of what you are being awarded for. If you have no respect for the awards, then don’t go. Rather be a Kangana Ranaut than a spoilsport.
The OTTplay awards got the awardees right. Kartik Aaryan and Taapsee Pannu walked away with the best actor and actress award in the popular category for Dhamaka and Haseen Dillruba, respectively, both richly deserved. I was also very happy to see Tamil actor Arya being awarded for his powerful, pugilistic performance in Sarpatta Parambarai.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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