Award functions need a shot of creative Botox

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: The irreverence of the Shah Rukh-Saif Ali Khan duo saved the 49th Filmfare awards nite from drowning in a sea of ennui.<br /><br />This was the second instalment of their cocking-a-snook at Bollywood-and-its-<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Ma</span> act (even cinema has a ''<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">ma</span>'' in it, quipped Saif).<br /><br />Their script was punchier and certainly raunchier than last year''s although it would have been nicer if the gay bonding had been restricted to the podium and not played out in the bedroom.<br /><br />On the whole, however, the audience thoroughly enjoyed the cracks—a refreshing change from conventional scripts loaded with compliments more fake than Telgi''s stamp paper.<br /><br />Thanks to the two Khans'' gay abandon, would say, the Filmfare Awards bungee jumped into its fiftieth year.<br /><br />Apart from them, it was only the <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">jadoo</span> of Hrithik Roshan that burnt up the stage. And Shaimak, I know, is among the best in the business, but can he refrain from recycling his girls on-stilts number? If I see that mobile photo-frame and magenta dress falling over stilts once again..<br /><br />The concept of glitz-and-glamour acts was introduced more than a decade ago to infuse life into an awards function that had become a boring speech-filled affair. <br /><br />Entertainment was coming into its own, India was liberalising. When the acts started to stale, foreign talent was brought in—the Lido from Paris, pop groups like UB40, acrobats from Africa. But even foreign has lost its novelty. The audience has evolved, the acts need to do so too.<br /><br />Here''s a suggestion for award shows in general. Perhaps the acts, which are necessary for the TV broadcast, can be shot and canned in advance, so that the live audience largely consisting of the film fraternity for who this is so much old hat, are spared sitting through it. <br /><br />Unless one thinks of a fresh menu, even TRP ratings of award shows in whose honour all this predictable fare is cooked up will dip. <br /><br />Bollywood is weaning itself off its formula feed and experimenting with bold new themes, award functions should follow suit.<br /><br />How about reverting to an indoor venue? An elegant auditorium a la the Oscars would give our evening a more formal and less formula feel. It would make for a sharper, snappier and tighter event.<br /><br />What award functions need, then, is a shot of creative Botox. Botox injections are the secret, joked Moushumi Chatterjee, when asked how she still looked so good. <br /><br />Never mind that it came out sounding like buttocks injections. Though some would agree that even the latter would do.</div> </div>