Dear Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma - Please Stop Appeasing Fan-Baity 'Honours' like Dadasaheb Phalke Excellence Awards
There is only one acknowledged Dadasaheb Phalke Awards and that is given out during the National Film Awards ceremony.
Recently, the fans of stars like Ranveer Singh, Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Kartik Aaryan, Rajkummar Rao were jubilant when it was announced that their fave stars would win the Dadasaheb Phalke Excellence Awards. The award ceremony was held in Mumbai recently on April 21, and Ranveer Singh, Shahid Kapoor had come down to collect their awards and wax about it on their Insta timeline. All well and good, right?
Now we understand the enthusiasm of our stars to attend these awards ceremonies and take away the trophies. For the next season of true award shows will only arrive by the fag end of the year, and we know how much they get trolled for their nominations and winners. Also the name 'Dadasaheb Phalke' holds so much respect and value. After all, the late legend is deemed as The Father of Indian Cinema, and we have heard of respected cinema dignitaries getting awards in his name.
But there are some harsh truths that you should know before you cheer for Ranveer and Anushka (even Tusshar Kapoor) winning these awards this year. We had done a story a few days back as to how there is only one acknowledged Dadasaheb Phalke Awards and that is given out during the National Film Awards ceremony. The last recipient of the same was the late Vinod Khanna earlier this year.
So what are the other awards issued in the name of the Father of Indian cinema? For that, let's go to an interview given by the legend's grandson, Chandrashekhar Pusalkar to IANS recently. Pusalkar acknowledges that that there are three award ceremonies being named after his grandfather (barring the Government's award), Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Awards, the Dadasaheb Phalke Film Foundation Awards and the Dadasaheb Phalke Excellence Awards.
Among these three, he only considers Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Awards as the legitimate one because, "...it has been paying tribute to my grandfather since the last 18 years. The Academy not only acknowledges icons, seniors and legends from the field of acting and production, but also from the 22 different crafts of the film industry, including acting, direction, technicians, make-up artistes and spot.”
So why are there three awards being given out in one person's name? Pusalkar explains, “After 2015, due to some differences, some people have started Dada Saheb Phalke Film Foundation Awards and afterwards some people started Dada Saheb Phalke Excellence Awards. So, from the same Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Awards, another two parts have been formed. I used to attend all three award ceremonies because they used to call us as a guest, but my only request to them is they should come under one umbrella by burying their differences.”
While Pusalkar looks to be hopeful in bringing them under one umbrella, these three organisations, in a bid to outdo each other, have been doing their best to appease the stars in giving out awards and getting the attention to themselves. And with the stars attending the ceremonies and flaunting the trophies, they are getting just that! A little observation here - the so-called Dadasaheb Phalke Excellence Awards has a Twitter following of just 88 members and don't even own a proper website.
Now you may ask what's wrong with issuing a private award, okay...three, in the name of a legend. The below picture might answer it. One of these Dadasaheb Phalke awards managed to 'honour' Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, currently serving jail sentence for rape conviction, in 2016 for his horrendous MSG series. You really want Shahid, Ranveer et al to follow that?
Moreover, doling out these awards randomly also reduces the legitimacy of the real Dadasaheb Phalke awards issued by the Government. Do our stars really need such fan-baity 'boost' to their talent? Are awards really so important that we really don't care who is handing out them?
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 23, 2018 05:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).