 "Anant Singh identifies the worst of Bollywood")
Dhoom 3 was quite a hit at this event, bagging three major trophies. The evening was full of surprises, perhaps the most astonishing of them being the thunderous applause that accompanied the announcement of Uday Chopra’s name as one of the awardees. Other nominees didn’t even come close to Chopra when it came to the Aap Yahaan Aaye Kisliye award. The 6th Golden Kela Awards, held recently at Delhi’s cultural hub, India Habitat Centre, celebrated the worst of Indian cinema in 2013. Yet another award that received loud ovation was the Baawra Ho Gaya Hai Ke which went to Aamir Khan — perhaps the only award to have fallen in Mr Perfectionist’s kitty this year. The audience was in splits as Anant Singh, creative director of the awards, took to the stage as the host, accessorised in bling and a fur coat. He, together with founder Jatin Varma, have created an ode to the bad and ugly from Bollywood year after year.
It was seven years ago that Singh and Verma thought of creating the Indian counterpart to Hollywood’s Raspberry awards, or the Razzies. At that time Singh was the managing director of Random, which was then India’s only humour magazine. “The awards were an offshoot of the magazine. Now Random is no longer in print. But we have kept the awards going under the umbrella of our company, Twenty Onwards Media, which is into comic book publishing and television production,” says Singh.
The idea of the award has roots in Singh’s passion for Bollywood films. While growing up in Lucknow, his was one of the few houses to have come under the sway of the first wave of cable television. “Zee Cinema was my constant childhood companion. It was my nanny as well as my entertainer,” laughs 30-year-old Singh. He grew up on a heavy dose of films from the 1970s and 1980s. “Ajooba and Mard were my favourites,” he says. He was also a huge fan of the Ramsay brothers. Perhaps it is this mix of the terrific and the terrible that allowed Singh to discriminate between good and bad cinema. “At IIT Kharagpur I spent more time watching films than studying,” says Singh. He moved to Delhi thereafter and joined Random. Though the awards were instituted seven years ago, it is only in the last six editions that a proper awards ceremony has taken place.
When asked who has been the most acerbic critic of the awards so far, Singh replies instantly: Sonam Kapoor. “She said something like ‘I don’t care about the awards as people who give it have nothing better to do’.” But didn’t she make an appearance at the rival Ghanta awards to accept her trophy? “She was given an award which wasn’t so mean to her,” says Singh irreverently. The most sporting of all the nominees was Abhishek Bachchan, who won the Dara Singh Award for the Worst Accent for Delhi-6 in 2010. “He tweeted saying that Delhi-6 had finally won an award. We sent him a letter and the trophy as well,” says Singh. Then there was Anvita Dutt who made history of sorts by turning up last year to accept the award for the worst song lyrics for Ishq wala love. Others who have turned up to receive the ignominious award include Vishal Bhardwaj for Ishqiya and Habib Faisal for Do Dooni Chaar, but then they were awarded the Anti-kelas for good cinema.
About rivals such as the Ghanta awards, Singh says that those are more like stand-up comedy shows, whereas the Golden Kela awards are more mainstream, with a proper “by-invitation only” ceremony and online voting. “A couple of lakh votes come in each year,” says Singh. It is ironic that a film award ceremony is held in Delhi and not in Mumbai, the mecca of Bollywood. “I guess more actors will turn up if the event was held in Mumbai. But then we are all based in Delhi and have better idea of venues and logistics here,” says Singh. As of now, there are no official sponsors of the event, with family and friends having funded the show a couple of times. “We are not making any money out of it. It’s a public service that we are doing,” guffaws Singh.
It was seven years ago that Singh and Verma thought of creating the Indian counterpart to Hollywood’s Raspberry awards, or the Razzies. At that time Singh was the managing director of Random, which was then India’s only humour magazine. “The awards were an offshoot of the magazine. Now Random is no longer in print. But we have kept the awards going under the umbrella of our company, Twenty Onwards Media, which is into comic book publishing and television production,” says Singh.
The idea of the award has roots in Singh’s passion for Bollywood films. While growing up in Lucknow, his was one of the few houses to have come under the sway of the first wave of cable television. “Zee Cinema was my constant childhood companion. It was my nanny as well as my entertainer,” laughs 30-year-old Singh. He grew up on a heavy dose of films from the 1970s and 1980s. “Ajooba and Mard were my favourites,” he says. He was also a huge fan of the Ramsay brothers. Perhaps it is this mix of the terrific and the terrible that allowed Singh to discriminate between good and bad cinema. “At IIT Kharagpur I spent more time watching films than studying,” says Singh. He moved to Delhi thereafter and joined Random. Though the awards were instituted seven years ago, it is only in the last six editions that a proper awards ceremony has taken place.
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Needless to say, actors haven’t been too pleased about the awards, with some taking to Twitter to pan them. The latest is Sonakshi Sinha, who poked fun at the awards by posting an image of herself with an actual banana on Instagram. She has the distinction of having won the Golden Kela award for worst actress (this year, for the over-the-top debacle, R..Rajkumar) twice in a row.
When asked who has been the most acerbic critic of the awards so far, Singh replies instantly: Sonam Kapoor. “She said something like ‘I don’t care about the awards as people who give it have nothing better to do’.” But didn’t she make an appearance at the rival Ghanta awards to accept her trophy? “She was given an award which wasn’t so mean to her,” says Singh irreverently. The most sporting of all the nominees was Abhishek Bachchan, who won the Dara Singh Award for the Worst Accent for Delhi-6 in 2010. “He tweeted saying that Delhi-6 had finally won an award. We sent him a letter and the trophy as well,” says Singh. Then there was Anvita Dutt who made history of sorts by turning up last year to accept the award for the worst song lyrics for Ishq wala love. Others who have turned up to receive the ignominious award include Vishal Bhardwaj for Ishqiya and Habib Faisal for Do Dooni Chaar, but then they were awarded the Anti-kelas for good cinema.
About rivals such as the Ghanta awards, Singh says that those are more like stand-up comedy shows, whereas the Golden Kela awards are more mainstream, with a proper “by-invitation only” ceremony and online voting. “A couple of lakh votes come in each year,” says Singh. It is ironic that a film award ceremony is held in Delhi and not in Mumbai, the mecca of Bollywood. “I guess more actors will turn up if the event was held in Mumbai. But then we are all based in Delhi and have better idea of venues and logistics here,” says Singh. As of now, there are no official sponsors of the event, with family and friends having funded the show a couple of times. “We are not making any money out of it. It’s a public service that we are doing,” guffaws Singh.