We don’t need no adulation

Once upon a time, glittering award ceremony nights were the one thing actors would unanimously look forward to, post the release of their yearly crop of movies. But that was a few years ago, and now with changing times, the craze for awards and ceremonies have come down drastically.

While many in Bollywood are increasingly feeling that award functions are more akin to reality shows and have turned into money-spinning businesses, more and more actors are inclined to believe they’re also rigged. Most stars now vouch for the authenticity of the National awards and even prefer international awards instead. In the bargain, they opt to snub other Indian ceremonies.

One actor, who has constantly chosen to stay out of this rat-race of awards has been Aamir Khan, having stuck by his opinions on award ceremonies unwaveringly till date. It would now seem many other actors are deciding to follow Aamir’s path, by refusing to attend award shows.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui
I haven’t been considered for a lot of award ceremonies. For instance, I wasn’t looked at for my Raman Raghav 2.0 performance in India, but I got an award in Spain and Melbourne for best actor. I want to refrain from all these awards. I want to appeal to the Indian award show organisers that they should not even nominate me for any roles in any category. Whenever I have received an award, I wasn’t happy. There are about 25-30 award shows in our country, which are more or less like entertainment shows made for television audiences. Last year Manjhi got no mention. Surprisingly, I never got an award for Gangs of Wasseypur. If I ask, who bagged an award for best supporting actor last year, no one will even remember.

Remo D’Souza
I won’t lie; honestly speaking, initially, I had this urge for getting awards. But the way award shows function right now, I even stopped going to collect the awards. I know that they’re not all real and it’s all rigged. I got to know about it very closely a few years back and it’s very sad. Currently, it’s not about awards. It’s about shows, and that’s really very sad. Of course, one award that I would like to win again and again is the National award. Apart from that, winning Oscars is my dream. Let’s see, in a year or two we will reach there. It’s my ultimate aim to get an Oscar for our country, and I’m certain that it will happen one day.

Irrfan Khan
Some awards and recognition matters to me, like when I was given the Padma Shri. I don’t care about film awards at all. They [the organisers] also don’t give me an award unless and until it’s a necessity for them. When the awards are partial, there’s no point or sense of it because it’s not genuine. Otherwise, I don’t know how people can even receive that award, when they know that they have exercised a kind of lobbying to win it. How do they face themselves when they receive the trophy?

Arjun Rampal
I agree with most actors when they say award functions are like reality shows; it’s really sad. I remember when I came into this industry, there were such credible award shows, and to win them was such a high. The more commercial they make it, the more they lose credibility — it becomes boring. I think award functions have lost a tremendous amount of credibility in my life. Because of all this, it makes my National award so much more special; at least I have that. National awards are not corrupted and it’s a sacred place. I hope we find one award function, which will be genuine.

— Inputs from Rohit Bhatnagar