All - I had the privilege of attending the South Filmfare awards held on Saturday, 4th August at Hyderabad. Imagine my pleasure when I found that I was in the same row as ARR - the only difference being I was in what was called the "Silver class" while ARR was in the "Gold class" and there was a sort of a barricade between the two classes. Nevertheless, I had a clear glimpse of him. He was in a black suit and accompanied by his wife. Actor Vijay was throughout sitting next to him and in fact, was the one to hand over the best Tamil MD award to ARR. A couple of ARR related stuff during the awards :-
a) When Shreya Ghoshal won the award for Munbe va, the compere asked her to sing a couple of lines. You should see her feeling very nervous and more than once telling on the mike - ARR Sir, I am trying to sing the song. She then hummed a couple of lines - brilliantly done, I must say!. No wonder when the giant screen panned to ARR, he was giving a smile and gently clapping appreciatively once Shreya finished her two line singing! b) One of the biggest cheers during the evening (of course, the biggest cheer was reserved for Chiranjeevi) was when Vijay announed ARR's name for the award. ARR, surprisingly, made a small speech in tamil thanking both Krishna (Director SOK) and KS Ravikumar (Director Varalaaru) for the award, saying the tunes were selected by them). Considering the venue was Hyderabad, I thought ARR would make his speech in Tamil. c) When Devisri Prasad got the award for the best MD in Telugu for Bommirulu, in his thankyou speech, he made mention of all the "Jambavans" like SPB, Yesudas, Susheela etc and finally rounded off by screaming "not to forget the Isaipuyal AR Rahman"!! d) Adhiradee of Sivaji was one of the songs which was danced to....but must confess it was not a patch on the original choreographed song! e) ARR was throughout were calm, composed and with Vijay (were they discussing something about ATM???). Very dignified was the word that comes to be immediately. f) When ARR went to collect his award, the song that was played on the big screen was New York Nagaram and I must say, with the lovely sound effects, the song was sounding even more brilliant! However, actor Vijay while announcing the award was so morose that one felt he was doing an unwilling chore rather than announcing a popular award. The awards will be telecast on Suntv. Not sure when though! My take on the awards - it was boring, utterly unprofessional and not a patch on the regular FF awards (however, if one considers how ARR's live rendering during the regular awards was botched up, I guess the South awards were par for the ocassion!!) Cheers! Balaji
