Admirable Movies and Despicable Awards

Asianet film fare awards 2014 is the biggest joke played by the leading Malayalam channel Asianet. None of the Asianet film fare awards ever made sense and this time it turned out more sour and boring as half of the awards didnt have any nominations and most of it were given to please the top actors and their lineage (No surprises there). They could have instead skipped the awards and made it a stage show to entertain the Dubai crowd, the TRP would have remained the same. This is not the first time that a channel is being criticized for conducting sloppy Awards function, but the fact that Asianet has remained adamant throughout the years and have adopted "Never learn from critics" attitude is surprising. The fact that Asianet is still the top selling channel is very reassuring for them.

Asianet seems to be in love with SRK as he was brought in for the second time for the annual film fare, the previous being in 2012. He was honored with awards like International Indian Icon in 2014 and Millennium Actor in 2012, the awards are as amusing as it sounds. The most annoying thing Asianet did was bring in a legend like Kamal Hassan and party all through the show with SRK. While Asianet could have at least tried to respect the hierarchy of Indian film industry, they didn't even keep up the dignity of an awards show; Kamal Hassan was given a namesake award called Best Tamil actor ( it couldn't get anymore ridiculous) and forgotten for the rest of the event. I badly wish Kamal Hassan never acknowledges any film fare invites from Mollywood anymore.

Coming to the actual purpose of the event: Awards. Asianet film fare awards are predictable like the months in a calendar year and the fact that everyone will go home with an award is like giving "Thank you" gifts at marriage parties. The best actor award is always reserved for Mamooty and Mohanlal as the primary concern is to pamper these two superstars. And film fare awards 2014 didn't see any of the other popular stars of the industry like Mukesh, SureshGopi, Jeyaram. I wonder why in the world is Asianet hosting film fare when they can't accommodate stars of the home film industry. Instead of playing hosts to gimmicks of "The Badshah of Bollywood" of whom the malayalees are already getting bored with, they could at least conduct a decent awards night and give away deserving awards at least once.

The above is the list of awards given for the best actor every year. It was 12 years back that an actor apart from the regular two won this award. Though either of these actors were deserving on some occasions, that wasn't the case every year. It explains a lot.

Conservative DAD. Liberal SON.

Old people wary of social media should at least be aware of the fact that what they see on print and visual media alone is not absolutely true and should be ready to embrace any difference in opinion with people active on social media. Television shows these days are predominantly biased on a particular issue and are merely portraying it loud. Unfortunately people judge the legitimacy of the news by the celebrity value of the journalists. And most of who are actually being questioned on their credibility. If I could name a few it would be Karan Thapar, Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Shobba De....Now that the terms like "Paid Media" and "Ruling Party's Spokesperson" have come into existence the actual purpose of Journalism has faded into oblivion. And its truly disheartening to see intellectual people speaking absolute nonsense and defending shitty policies.

In a country where "Freedom of speech" is just a figure of speech I guess Karan Thapar has made the most of it. Gone are the days when people blindly trusted print and visual media. And journalists like Karan Thapar would remember those as the Glory Days of their lives. Karan Thapar is a typical example of an Over Confident journalist who puts words into the mouth of the interviewee and then pulls them out. He is in fact a smart Journalist who knows how to play the cards and dominate an Interview. In all his interviews instead of asking questions he projects his perception of things and demands an explanation.

In this Interview with a BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad, Karan Thapar questions the infamous "Puppy analogy" made in a statement by Modi. Karan Thapar claims that it has caused communal issues in the country and has already sparked an outrage among Muslims against Modi. While none of his claims are true he makes an allegation that is far beyond any logical explanations that could be deciphered from the actual incident. The sad thing is certain section of the society who are at peace with everyone, after seeing this piece of interview believe that it has indeed hurt their sentiments and develop hatred against Modi and other fellow beings, meanwhile the purpose of the interview is achieved.

Media is aimed at a target audience who is susceptible to the content shown on TV and are prone to take decisions based on a fair number of opinions of their favorite TV shows.  While urban people active on social media are aware of these kinds of media drama, the majority still lurks in the dark and are hardly bothered to investigate beyond the opinion of TV shows.

There was a time when we were all awestruck by our dads inference on any political issue in the country. Nowadays its the other way around. While everyone has the right to have an opinion of his own; you can at least make your opinions loud enough to sort out any in-differences within the family.

Be aware, Be rationale.

Here is another video in which Sagarika Ghose is left speechless by Ram Jethmalani: