Ali's Notes

Kaise bhulenge hum woh pyar, woh pyar bhari raat?

I am sitting alone (something I love doing) and thinking of the things that have happened around me, things that have given me pleasure, things that have tried to give me pain, things that have happened and fled before they could make an impact on me, any kind of impact, good or bad, things that have been memorable, things that will stay with me as long as long as I live, things like the Fifth Screen-Videocon Awards, an annual event which is a fascinating blend of some of the most prestigious awards presented during the beginning of the new year and entertainment unlimited, entertainment that brings joy to hundreds and thousands and lakhs of people all over the country and abroad...

It’s all over, yes, it’s all over... after more than an endless month of sheer hard work put in by an entire team. I sit alone and let my mind relax, set it free to go into a flashback to remember some memorable and some not so memorable moments which were a part of my life for days and nights, something which will always be there with me because there was sincerity, hard work, passion, a mission to achieve ,something to give the world, something it would remember us for as long as its memory lasts. My tired mind goes into a slow flashback...

The butterflies who had flown away after teasing and flirting with us endlessly last year came back. This time an entire army of them. They perched themselves in various places in our stomachs and minds and then kept flitting and floating, soaring and roving within us. January 16, 1999 was the day, it was announced and January suddenly became the only day to live for, we had to live till that crucial day because all our days to come depended on that day...

It was time to start work on an awards ceremony and what’s an award ceremony without a perfect jury (our awards are always decided by a panel of jurors who are some of the most well-known specialists in the various departments of filmmaking)? We had to get together those great good men and women whose commitment to cinema, courage to take decisions whatever the world said and never to cower before the growing pressures put on them by some of the most powerful or so-called powerful men in the world of films were prime qualities. We were not lucky...

We were more than lucky, we had a giant of a man who knew what fair play was despite all the foul games played against him to be the chairman -- Sunil Dutt. No man or woman could suspect him, doubt his motives, undermine his contribution to cinema and to goodness in life, our lives, their lives, so many lives, a man who refused to bow before any wrong or evil "God". There was Javed Siddiqui, the man who started with theatre and went on to become one of the most popular and highly paid writers in Hindi cinema. Javed was even burdened with the job of writing the script for the show which was to be held while the awards were being distributed but he did not mind taking on the extra burden. He was the right choice, everyone but one gracious lady said, we had Kamlesh Pandey the writer of a million experiences and another writer-actor-director Prayag Raaj. Then we had the seventy-year-old writer-editor BS Glaad who has been putting some of the best directors in their places with his ever-so-sharp scissors. Glaad whose real name is Bernard Shaw Glaad, believe it or not, lived upto his name when he regaled the learned members of the jury after some hectic screenings and heated debates with his endless golden treasury of jokes and anecdotes. There was Sunil Singh the art director who believed silence was golden but spoke out when it was his time to pass judgement. We had the one-time child artist Master Sachin who was a master of cinema now and who was a young man with his head in his shoulders, a man on whose valuable opinions some of the most tried and tested veterans could depend on. Then we had Nadeem Khan who was a master in every department of filmmaking -- a Khan who can get into and will, I am sure, get into better and bigger things in the future in everything connected with cinema. There was the young Devendra Khandelwal who I call "a mini showman". The man who is a MBA and a writer of any number of books knows cinema on his finger tips but has never stopped learning. He was busier than any busy bee in Mumbai but he accepted our offer to be on our jury and swore what he would not let any of his multi-faceted activities interfere with his work as a member of our jury. There was Kuldeep Sood the sound recordist from Anand who sometimes bunked work only to do justice to work on our jury. I am specially thankful to the women -- Saira Banu and Poonam Dhillon. Sairaji came to all the screenings and even made up when she couldn’t make it. She did our jury the honour inspite of having a sick mother (Naseem Banu) waiting for her at home. And Poonam who has had some nasty knocks in her life and has to look after two little children’s comforts alone made a perfect juror. We couldn’t ask for the a more competent jury, by God. They saw every film that was shown to them -- some of them two or three times. They had the advantage of having a chairman like Sunil Dutt who inspired them to become Sunil Dutts on their own. They wanted to come up with the perfect list of winners -- like he wanted. And that list is what Sunil Dutt brought and presented to our editor, Ms Udaya Tara Nayar in the presence of the entire audience. It was their labour of love, a mission fulfilled, a mission which had taken them more than a month to achieve. It was a list only those who lost the race and their admirers and well-wishers could find fault with this list without a flaw...

To these gracious gentlemen and gracious women of the jury I shall personally be grateful because there were times when I wondered how these veterans, these learned men and women listened to me when it came to change in schedules and cancellations and other problems created by men and women who for some strange reasons loved creating problems. But on the whole everything went smoothly right upto the time the names of the winners were declared. Thank you, Dutt Sahab and your entire team for adding honour to our awards...

The "pack of cards" arrived in office in boxes -- the invitations -- came. The Screen team fanned out in all directions of the city of Mumbai. They could have reached the sky if there was an address there. They were so charged. If you ask me distributing these invitation cards is the most difficult job we do. The security men outside those huge bungalows, those sky scrapers in new areas, the gun-men, the servants, the "beware of dogs" sign outside houses which had no dogs inside (who were the dogs the boards were referring to?). Some stars behave very well, some of them behaved like they had never seen human beings like us before. Some said what a great paper we represented and how they were "dying" to live to see the great day. Some promised to be there wherever they were on that night. Some, like the Kapoor brothers said they would not be there, they wold be very busy, so why waste cards. Thank you, dear brothers. We need more frank men like you...

Then a man like Aamir Khan who has vowed never to be present at any awards ceremony or receive any award. Brave man, brave decision (some have different opinions about his brave decision but we believe in democracy. If he doesn’t care for awards why should we worry our heads about his coming or not coming? Some say he will change his opinion some day. He may, but tell me what big difference will it make to the world if he does? He is happy with his decision. Let him be happy and may his happiness grow manifold with every year). Some veteran stars have lost interest in "all these awards, these trophies which one day just rust and are thrown out as waste". They are not interested in who wins or who loses but they are interested in the show and the shows they can always sit in their rocking chairs or squat on their beds and watch on television...

The rehearsals start after a beautiful set built under the supervision of art director Rehmat Ali Khan, a veteran of the stage and a new man to films is complete within days, a marvel. There is the veteran Sam Kerawala, the specialist in lights and there is the captain, Hosi Vasunia, who has directed some of the most successful plays in English but is directing a show like this for the first time (he first tried his hand at the last South Screen-Videocon Awards show held in Chennai but that show was child’s play compared to this giant of a show). He would have to confront and conquer the giant or the giant would maul him, mince him to pieces. He decides to play David. He takes on the giant...

The rehearsals are no major hassles, thank heavens. Even a man like Govinda who has that one of a kind watch reaches in time, gives all his time and rehearses to perfection till late in the night. Two nights and he is ready with his two dances. All the others, Rani Mukerji, Mamta Kulkarni, Salman and Arbaaz, Manoj Bajpai, Jaaved Jaffrey and even the gorgeous Rekha make sure that Hosi’s sugar level doesn’t go up, that his heart beats don’t go helter-skelter....

The night of January 15. We watch the entire dress rehearsal and send up a common prayer. We humans have done our best. The rest is in His hands. I can’t sleep that night. I see a dream when I am still awake, tense. I see a huge crowd of ten thousand men, women and children giving Hosi and the entire entertainment team the kind of ovation they had never heard or seen before. I wish my dream comes true for them, for all of us, for Screen. No ovation. No future. That’s the situation at five in the morning...

The show starts a little late in the evening. Time is a villain of sorts. Then there is the police who keeps warning us that they will not allow us to go on beyond a certain time limit. The statuette is unveiled and the show goes on. Every item gives us confidence adds adrenaline into us. Every new guest who enters brings a glow on our faces. There are some in the audience who are not treated well by the security. They push some of the producers and filmmakers behind. We feel sorry but it is too late to do anything about it. All we can say is one big sorry now. SORRY, FRIENDS...

There is one big producer who I once treated like a father figure. His seat is a little uncomfortable, he says. He suddenly stops behaving like a father. He barks like a dog and says "I am not a dog. If Ramanand Sagar can sit in a special enclosure with his sons, why can’t I? I am not a dog" he barks again and throws his invitation at me. I feel like behaving like how Aurangzeb behaved with his father Shah Jahan (he had thrown him into jail and tortured him for years). But then the theme of our show was love, how could I do anything so destructive on such a lovable day? I behaved like a lover, in love with the whole world...

I saw the whole show coming to a grand end, in time, without any rancour, only love, love, more love. My heart glows. I can feel so many hearts glow that night like Shah Jahan, the great lover’s heart must have glown once. I forgave Aurangzeb that night. I hope our show has helped people realise the greatness of love. I hope it has. I pray it does. Love is hope. Love is prayer, love is the only messiah. Which messiah are we waiting for?