Editorial

CEREMONY OF GLITCHES

It was one of those nights. When everything that can go wrong does. An over ambitious Rs 65 lakh extravaganza that went phut like a damp firecracker. A colossal embarrassment to the state, and a lesson in how not to conduct an awards ceremony. Sadly, a lesson no one’s learnt.
Indeed, the 37th Maharashtra state awards ceremony was among the biggest fiascos we’ve seen in recent times, outside of the movies. It was meant to be a major break with tradition in several ways, and a long overdue one at that, The devil wasn’t in the design, it turns out, rather in the execution.

While all 36 previous editions of the awards nite, barring five, were held in Mumbai, this one was at Thane. A great idea, that. After all, Marathi cinema and its stars need to be popularised at the grassroots, outside of the traditional bastions. And where better to start than at Thane, recently voted the best city in the state? And what better way to do it than get the infinitely more popular Hindi movie stars to promote them?

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. The state government, with its near bankrupt treasury, proved the adage right, inventing a way to conduct the Rs 65 lakh ceremony in a way that hurt it little. All it put in was Rs 25 lakh, while the Thane municipal corporation chipped in with Rs 15 lakh, Ulhasnagar and Navi Mumbai added Rs 10 lakh each and Kalyan-Dombivali, Mira-Bhayander and Bhiwandi together granted Rs 13 lakh. In addition to the Rs 73 lakh thus raised, ticket sales, another novelty introduced this time, added to the revenue. All of which only goes to show that with some enterprise from the government, even a bankrupt treasury is no grievous handicap. Certainly, these were commendable initiatives, and the state government deserves our kudos for showing courage in its convictions.

COKE WITH NO FIZZ
Why then do we crib? Well, the greatest brainwave and the grandest design can be like coke with no fizz without effective execution. As in this case.

Of course, people were bound to oppose having to pay for passes, especially those who were used to receiving them as freebies. Yet, the demand for passes turned out to be so overwhelming that it shortcircuited all preparation. No one in government, it seems, anticipated such a huge turn-out. That was its greatest undoing.
In the run-up to the spectacle, no one seemed to pay much heed to the Thaneites’ complaint that they were being forced to buy passes against their will. Several local businessmen, including hoteliers and builders, in fact, complained they had little interest in films, yet tickets were thrust upon them at Rs 2000 each.

Worse was to follow. There was chaos at the various entry points. All of Thane, it seemed, had descended on Dadaji Konddeo Stadium in droves. There wasn’t an entry point for the industryfolk alone, and they were seen pleading, cajoling, even quarrelling to be allowed in.

You don’t need an event management team to tell you there ought to be special entry points for award winners and invitees at functions of this sort. And also people at the gates, who can recognise the stars from the hordes of pretenders. These may seem elementary, but there was indeed, a woeful lack of common sense in the way things were organised at the Thane do.

The confusion inside had to be seen to be believed. The award winners and nominees were given the back rows, and guess who got to sit next to the stage? The politicians, of course. The Hindi stars, Amitabh Bachchan, Govinda, Jackie Shroff, Aditya Panscholi, Manisha Koirala and even Ms World Yukta Mookhey were treated like visiting gods, while the Marathi stars, whose nite it ought to have been, were ignored.
The function itself was too long, from 8 pm to 1 am, longer, in fact, than the rambling Oscars nite. The wheelchair-bound Master Bhagwan and Vasant Painter were kept waiting till the very last to collect the awards. Halfway through the dreary evening, even those who’d forked out Rs 2000 to come in, were seen leaving the stadium, weaned of the tamasha. Other awards functions such as the SCREEN Videocon are forcibly brought to a halt around curfew hour, 11 pm. But these are the state awards, remember, and they’re not bound by police curfews!
Several heads would have rolled in event management teams for gross incompetence of this sort. But try getting the babus who ran the show to be accountable! And who do you think paid the price for it all? The Marathi industry did. After all, with friends like some of those in government, you don’t need enemies.

Shaju George Alex