I watched the Gollapudi Srinivas Memorial Award ceremony 2008 on SS Music. The award is given every year on August 12th for the best directorial debut in memory of the namesake. Srinivas died in the seas near Vizag while filming his first movie. His family gives the award which is decided by a jury comprising of Kamal Hassan among many others. Aamir Khan is the recipient of the 11th Gollapudi Srinivas Award for his beautiful ‘Taare Zameen Par’. The award carries a cash of Rs.1.5 Lakhs (loose change for Aamir?). The award was announced in March and it was reported that Kamal himself talked to Aamir to come to the award ceremony in Chennai in August. Aamir who refuses to appear at award ceremonies was moved by the story behind this award and accepted.
The evening started off with Ghazals by Jagjit Singh (a very rare event in Chennai). The stage was occupied by Director K.Balachander, Anupam Kher, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and of course Srinivas’s father. Anupum and Vidhu spoke of the Aamir that most of us don’t know. KB was the one who stole the show and moved Aamir to tears. He said Indian Cinema was in safe hands with Aamir at the helm. He also said that he is the real ‘Dawn’ of Indian Cinema and said the pun was intended. (at the other Khan). AK’s faith in the story to make his appearance only towards the interval was highly acclaimed. KB ended by saying that AK was the new AB of Indian Cinema and said AB was Abhinav Bindra. Bindra had won the Gold medal on that morning.
Aamir was with moist eyes for most of the time that KB spoke. When Aamir spoke, he had in abundance a virtue that I have seldom found in Mumbai – Modesty. He said that most of the credit needs to be given to the Story and the Screenplay writers of TZP. He cried on stage when he said he wished his mother was there to watch this. Aamir donated the money to help budding moviemakers. He also took the copy from which KB spoke saying that he wanted to read that out to his grandchildren. Don’t miss the video on You Tube.
