Every year, the premier Bengali News Channel, Star Ananda organises a special ceremony called "Shera Bangali" (literally translates into the "Best bangali") to award Bengalis ... who have achieved distinctive successes, and set new benchmarks in their respective streams. Since amongst all Indians, it is the Bengali culture that generally tops his or her own line of work ;-) ... you can consider the winners of these awards to be pretty well known in the country and across the world. Previous awardees and nominees, for example, included Pranab Mukherjee, Shaan, Pritam Chakraborty, Shreya Ghoshal, Sourav Ganguly, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Mamata Banerjee (had to be!), Mithun Chakraborty, Soumitra Chatterjee, Mrinal Sen ... blah blah blah ...
This year too, every Bengali was somewhat agog regarding this and were eagerly awaiting the results. ( I WASN'T, and I didn't even know when this would be held :D ). But Surprise and Surprises ... on the 8th of July, my dad recieved a call from a Star News (I mean Star Newj) hotshot, and a good friend of my dad, saying that he would be sending over 3 VIP Passes to this event, would he be able to come.
And Why NOT!!!!
The passes reached our residence the next day, and the day after ... viz yesterday, it was a pretty exited trio, consisting of my parents and myself who took their seats in the huge National Science City Auditorium precisely at 6 PM (possibly my last outing with my parents ... in a looooong time to come). The program commenced at around 6:30 with the enchanting melody of A R Rahman's Maa Tujhe Salaam , and incredible special effects created by throwing psychedeilc lights thorugh an ocean of carbon-dioxide (dry ice)... emceed by veteran news reader Suman De, and Tollywood actress (oops, actor, no discrimination, mind it) Swastika Mukherjee.
The first award, Shera Bangali in Film, went to the much deserving Rahul Bose, of Pyaar ka Side Effects, Jhankaar Beats, and Maan Gaaya Mughal-e-Azam fame ... but mainly owing to his groundbreaking performance in the recent Bengali Film, Antaheen.
The next award, in the music category went to Shantanu Moitro, who had previously directed music for Munna Bhai, and Parineeta, and a few other Hindi films, but this time again it was owing to his awesome tracks in the film Antaheen, sung by the evergreen combo of Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal.
The award in the sports category went to the captain of the Indian Women Cricket Team, Jhulan Goswami, yet another deserving candidate, and a lot better than Ranadeb Bose or Ahok Dinda.
The other awrdees included Ketaki Kushari Dyson (literature), Sumit Banerjee (corporate), Abir Karmakar (Art), and Paoli Dam (new face).
The Lifetime Achievement Award was bestowed upon veteran actor, who had ruled the roost in the Bengali Film Industry (after perhaps Uttam Kumar) for 50 years, Soumitra Chatterjee.
The "Shera-r Shera" or "the Best among the Best" award was given to the Indian Foreign Secretary, Mr Ronen Sen, who had guided the country, and still is, through the troubled water of International Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs ... right from being the Indian Ambassador during the signing of the Indo-Soviet pact, till the recent signing of the N-deal with the US.
After the award cermony, it was time for the fun and games to begin, this time emceed by popular TV faces, Neel and Debolina. The first entertainment event was a dance ... presented by yet another Tollywood favourite Rituparna Sen, and Hiran ... but that seemed pretty stale compared to what followed next. Following a short break, the curtain rose once again, this revealing the awesomely prepared band, ready to rumble ... a huge drum kit was positioned in the very centre, at the back. Beside it was more percussions, congos, tablas, and an octopad. Five guitars rested on the wall behind ... bass, acoustic, electric, you name it ... it was ll there. The other side had a hige compendium of three double-decker keyboards ... all ready to kick off the gala celebrations.
The first performance was presented by the much acclaimed Bollywood singer Abhijeet (no, not Sawant) ... belting out his hits with incredible ease, and stage composure ... well do I need to name the tracks? Chaand Taare Tod Laaoon, Main koi aisa geet gaaon, tumaaye toh haawa mein ... and his recent hit from Billu, till the enthralled crowd couldn't have had expected anything more! But that wasn't the end ... the organisers had ensured that there would be absolutely no one left unsatisfied ... just in case there was someone in the crowd who didn't prefer Abhijeet, the next performer made sure that that person got, all that he/she had bargained for ... if not more. And it was, setting the arena on fire, the one and only wonder girl, who seems to have taken command of Bollywood with her enchanting voice and songs ... Shreya Ghoshal.
The crowd went mad. Just mad. No other word would do. She began with her recent hits from the Bengali film Antaheen 'Jao pakkhi' and 'Pherari Mon', and then setting the stage ablaze with her scorching Bollywood numbers ... from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, to Parineeta (Piyu Bole) to Singh is Kinng (Teri Ore), to Gangster to Devdas to Jab We Met ... and what not ... including a few of her classical pieces, it was a music lover's dream come true ... at around 10:30 the performance ended, with the audience dying for more ... it was a rather contented trio that boarded the Toyota Qualis that took us back to our house.
I'm putting up a few pics that I managed to shoot ... and I shot a few videos too till my Cybershot ran out of memory ... I'll put up the clips later, for now, here are the pics:
1: the restricted circle pass
2 and 3: the lights during inauguration
4: the award winners line-up so that I may take photpgraphs :D
5: Abhijeet sets the stage ablaze
I didn't take still photos of Shreya Ghoshal, shot some videos instead, shall upload them soon ... feeling lazy now :)
the photos are little blurred, because they were taken by (optical ) zooming. Though optical zooming does NOT, ideally produce blurring ... especially on an 8.1 MP Sony Cybershot, a wee little shaking of the hands can lead to a slight distortion. I tried my best to keep my hands steady.
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