By: Talat Mohsin
The International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) celebrated its two-decade journey by giving out special awards this year. Deepika Padukone was awarded with the best actress award for her role in the 2013 action-comedy “Chennai express” while Ranbir Kapoor won the best actor award for the drama movie “Barfi”.
The best film of the last twenty year’s award went to the Hritik Roshan starrer “Kaho Na Pyaar Hai”. Rajkumar Hirani was conferred with the award for his movie “3 idiots”, Pritam won it for “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”, while the award for outstanding contribution to Indian Cinema was given to choreographer Saroj Khan. The award presented to her by Madhuri Dixit, who also paid attribute to the choreographer by performing on some of her famous songs. The comedian Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed, also known as Jagdeep, was also presented with this award.
These awards display the kind of favoritism that persists in the glittering life of Bollywood. Rani Mukherjee in “black”, Aishwarya Rai in “raincoat”, Alia Bhatt in “Highway”, Priyanka Chopra in “Barfi”, Tabu in “Maqbool”, Ratna Pathak Shah in “Lipstick under my burkha”, Vidya Balan in “the dirty picture” and “Kahani”, Konkona Sen Sharma in “page 3”, Kalki Koechlin in “Margarita with a Straw” and the list continues. Was Deepika’s performance in the comedy better than all of their performances? Or was it just another instance of the elaborate favoritism in Bollywood.
The belief is further strengthened by the choice of best movie made in Bollywood in the last 20 years. Surely, one would think that the award would go to a movie that broke barriers and stereotypes or had a good message.
At least a movie with a good storyline. The likes of movies such as “My name is Khan”, “Udaan”, “Queen”, “Dor”, “Rang De Basanti”, “Amir”, “Gangs of Wasseypur” did not find any mention on the platform. Is it still a competition if the winners are not chosen fairly?
This year the IIFA for the best actress was won by Alia Bhatt for her role in the spy-thriller “Raazi”, while the best actor award for won by Ranveer Singh for his role in the period movie “Padmaavat”. Raazi won the award for the best film of the year.