Sandipan Bollywood Awards 2009

The Sandipan Bollywood Awards (SBA) is in it's fourth year now. This highly biased award however changes its statuette this year for obvious reasons. Also, Bipasha Basu is conspicuous by her absence.

I will try my best to stick to the old list, but some would be staying undecided and some new ones will be introduced.

Best Story: The award goes to 2 movies. Incidentally, both the stories are supposedly written by 2 different famous authors in their own field. However, the directors interpretation of the story was what made it beautiful. Hence the best Story awards goes to Raju Hirani and Anurag Kashyap instead of Chetan Bhagat and Sarat Chandra Chattopaddhyay for 3 Idiots and DevD.

Best Song: For me, it is Masakkali

Best Music Director: Who else but --- A.R Rehman for Dilli 6. The only other movie with decent songs was Kaminey.

Best Singer(Male) : Mohit Chauhan for "Pehli Baar.. Mohabbai ki hai"

Best Singer (Female): This award has to wait. All the songs I remember are all male singers. Tentatively, the award goes to my favorite Alisha Chinoy for being the female voice in the duet "Teraa... hone laga hoon" from Ajab prem ki Gajab Kahani.

Best Lyrics : Gulzaar again for "Pehli Baar.. Mohabbai ki hai". Esp the lines

Tujhe gudgudana… satana yuhi sote hue,
Gaal pe teepna… meechna bewajah besabab.

These lines always gives me shivers.

Best television interview: There was a lot of potential this year with the Indian Elections and there have been so many interviews of Sachin when he completed 20 years in cricket. However, I probably missed most of those. For me, the best one was Sourav's interview in Farhan Akhtar's Oye It's friday.

Best Item Song: Hands down, Hrithik for Baawre in Luck by Chance.

Here is a new award:

Best reality show Contestant: Nominations: Natasha Sinha (Roadies 6), Joanna Magee (Splitsvilla 2), Mona Wasu (Iss jungle se Mujhe Bachao 1), Rupali Ganguly (Fear Factor 2) and Claudia Ciesla (Bigg Boss 3). And the award goes to.... Claudia for her sweet pronunciation of Kyunki as kuykin.

And now the main awards:

Best Comedian: Rather than giving it to some cliched comedian, it goes to the actor who made us laugh the most, even with the stale jokes: Aamir Khan for 3 Idiots.

Best Supporting Actor: R. Madhavan and Sherman Joshi for 3 Idiots

Best Supporting Actress: Giselle Monteiro as Harleen Kaur in Love Aaj kal

Best Villain: Amol Gupte as Bhope Bhau in Kaminey

Best Newcomer (male): No idea. No award this year.

Best Newcomer (Female) : Again tough choice. So no awards but a special mention to Sonam Kapoor who re-invented her this year.

Best Director: Vishal Bharadwaj for Kaminey.

Best Film: Though the biggest hit was 3 Idiots, my award goes with Kaminey. The movie had it all, good script, good acting, good songs as well as a fresh change. 3 idiots lacked in songs.

Best Actress: The nominations are: Sonam Kapoor (Dilli 6), Priyanka Chopra (Kaminey), Priyanka Chopra (What's your Rashee), Vidya Balan (Paa). And the award goes to.... Priyanka Chopra for What's Your Rashee. The the movie bombed, her performance was really commendable. It was historical.

Best Actor: The nominations are: John Abraham (New York), Shahid Kapoor (Kaminey), Ranbir Kapoor ( Wake up Sid and Rocket Singh: Salesman of the year), Aamir khan (3 Idiots). And the award goes to.... Shahid Kapoor for Kaminey (woh fa ko fa hi bolta hai)

And now, another new award just for this year:

Best Cameo: And the award goes to one and only Shahrukh Khan for his role in Billu Barber. Especially the end speech in the school was personally Shahrukh Khan at his best.

Deep down, I am a bong

I just realized how Bong I am when I was discussing with Nirmal about Racist attacks on Indians in Australia. We both agreed on this statement of Shobhaa De, found here:

Both the governments should work together more cohesively, and the Australians in particular must reassure the community that the safety of students is of paramount importance to them. Our student numbers contribute a sizeable chunk to the Aussie economy. Their lives must be protected and their status respected. On our part, desi students cannot treat the host country as their filthy backyard and abuse local customs.

What Nirmal said was if you are doing illegal work there, you should be ready to face the consequences like these attacks. In reply, I said that, how-much-ever illegal it is, physical violence is not the way to show your displeasure. You should do strikes, road blockades, marches, candle light vigils and what not.

It looks like the word fell off from some Trinamool Congress 101 course. But yes, I do think that is the way things should work, though in the reverse order of the actions stated above. Well, I think that is the attitude of all Bongs. We want a peaceful solution with no physical harm, however monetary/public annoyance it may create. First and foremost priority is to be physically safe. I think that is the key to Kolkata not being a place of any Violence inspite such a large ratio of muslims and hindus.

Take a few examples. What is MNS doing? It is beating up people and sending them home whoever it feels unfit. Though we all agree it is not right, we have different opinions on what is right. My view is that if I feel endangered by foreign entities in my state, I should take it to the law. I should file a case to the court that I feel threatened in my own land by outsiders and I am not feeling secure. As law takes its own course, the next most daring thing I can think of is a protest march. What will a typical bong do? He will probably think the same as me, but then as we all know how slow law is, it would just end up being a coffee table discussion that look how Marwaris have virtually taken up all our businesses. (Well that's what is happening, though I have heard slight dissatisfaction over Marwaris taking up local businesses, I have not seen any efforts from Bengalis to be entrepreneurs. Exceptions exist).

Jayalalitha does not like something and she sends troops inside Karunanidhi's house at the dead of the night who drag him to jail. What will Mamatadi do? She will stand in the middle of Esplanade, block two hours of traffic in the middle of the day and give speeches as to how bad Budhdhababu is.

Well, I think this is the way I am and all the Bongs are. I believe in a ideal society. In this society, a candle vigil will be taken as seriously as probably the Gujarat riots. There would be reason behind everything and everybody would be well educated. As all are educated, crimes would be momentary reactions and would be corrected by a term in jail. There would be no forced confessions by the police or no crime should result in capital punishments.

Don't all the Bongs think this way? Wasn't Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose a fluke case amongst Bengalis and Gandhiji more a symbol of Bong ideologies?

Bests of 2009

This is probably the last but one post for this year. For the annual Bollywood awards, you have to wait for the next year as I think it will be injustice to pass any verdict before watching 3 Idiots. Here are some random bests according to me:

Best blogger:
Shobhaa De

Best website:
www.bing.com (Strictly for homepage looks)

Best news website:
in.rediff.com (Content not layout)

Best looks amongst Indian movie leading actresses
Sonam Kapoor


Best Talk show:
Oye it's friday

Best Indian food place where I went:
Kabab factory

Best cloth shop for my budget:
Old Navy

Best Indian Sportsperson:
Saina Nehwal

Best news correspondent:
Shekhar Gupta

Best food place near Natick Framingham:
Minado

Best book I read:
Sea of Poppies (originally 2008)

Best food I cooked:
Palak Paneer in August


Best Indian Politician:
Shashi Tharoor

Best (non personal) day of the year:
15th July 2009 (Harry Potter and Half blood Prince movie release date)

I stop at that.