That time of day again....

I am sleepy.. very sleepy... sitting in the lab at 1217 hrs with a headache that reminds me that I haven't had quality sleep last night... Not because I didn't go to sleep on time, no. I switched the lights off and tried to sleep at my normal bed time (3:15 am) but couldn't sleep for some time because I had made the mistake of looking at rediff at 2 am and found out a little news item saying that National Awards have been declared and that Saif and Aish have won the top two actor awards! No explanations. Just a little 2-line article. I frantically tried to confirm the news (and find about other awards... specially music) from other news sites. Nothing. Slowly other sites started to catch up. But it was same everywhere. Same two lines. Indian Express at least had the manners to put a "details awaited" at the end of those two lines. Tired, I finally gave up at 3:15 but couldn't help not finding enough peace of mind to be able to sleep. Saif!!!! Which movie?? Ek Hasina Thi? But that was looong ago, it couldn't have been last year... Where else was he good enough to even deserve a filmfare nomination, forget National Award? Oh yes! Parineeta!! He was pretty good considering that its not quite the sort of character that he normally plays... But National Award?? In any case, Parineeta is probably a bit too recent to qualify for this year's awards... so which movie??

Ok, forget it.. What about Aish? Which movie? I haven't seen Chokher Bali but it was last year's movie in any case.. Raincoat? Yes, must've been that one. Haven't seen that either.. Who knows, maybe Rituparno Ghosh is SOOO good that he got a National Award worthy performance out of her.. good explanation, but I wasn't quite convinced having seen quite a few of her movies under not-too-shabby directors (Mani Ratnam and Sanjay Bhansali to name two..)

Anyway, I kept waking up every hour or so throughout the night having nightmares about Saif and Aish standing on a podium and Karan Johar asking them, "so what would you choose: National Award or Filmfare award?" and many people kneeling down in the background.. Some of them looked like Kamal Haasan, Mohanlal, Tabu and Revathi. Rahman was standing on another podium nearby looking at his 5 certificates with horror. (I know I know this is too JK Rowlingish... but I can't help it... HBP is about to release in two days' time.. what do you expect?)

Anyway, woke up in the morning and the first thing I did was check rediff for any possible retraction they might've wanted to do. Found this report. As you can see, no mention of Aish at all!! I assure you, it was on most sites last night and now nobody is talking about it!! So, what happened? I dunno... maybe they DID retract it after realizing that it could not be true.. Wonder why they didn't think so about Saif.. In fact, seems the jury were actually asked about the unexpected top award and Sudhir Mishra said something like "SRK's performance wasn't bad in Swades but Saif had a very different take on and did very well in a difficult role... also, we wanted to be different and give it to someone other than a serious/heavy role"... which is all very well, but it makes me think.. was Swades the only worthy rival to Saif's performance? Or was it simply that 99% of the reporters asking questions were from Bombay/Bollywood? I don't know.. maybe there was actually no really good performance in any movie in any language in India over last year... Or maybe Saif WAS so good in Hum Tum.. after all, I haven't even seen the movie (planning to seeing it as soon as possible now..). But surely, the fact that Saif "is getting better in his performances" shouldn't have much to do with his winning a National Award? It should be how he was as compared to others in that year... Khair... as I said, all this might just be because Saif turned in an extraordinary performance that I didn't know about (because everyone else seems to have ignored it too... till now.. )

Enough about these two... Other notable awards, as far as I am concerned, were Page 3 winning best picture (haven't seen that either.. have been looking for its DVD for a month now... can't seem to find it..), Buddhadeb Dasgupta winning best director for Swapner Din, Udit winning for "Yeh Taara Wo Taara" and Chitra taking her customary best female singer award (for Autograph this time). Raincoat got the best hindi film. AND there is absolutely no mention of best music award on any site that I could find!! Why???? The one award I am most interested in!!! Anyway, a reliable source tells me that Rahman hasn't got it. Seems it went to Vidyasagar. I wonder which movie... Must be that Telugu movie Swarabhishekam...

*sigh!* what can one do.. only wait for next year, I guess.. With The Rising releasing tomorrow and Rivermoon(Water) and Rang De Basanti hopefully coming soon, next one year shouldn't be too bad for us ARR fans..

Update: found the complete list on The Hindu's site. Vidyasagar did win for Swarabhishekam as I had thought. Prabhu Deva wins best choreography for Lakshya. Best Art Direction to Bose. Best Cinematography to Swades (WHAT??? Swades??? Cinematography??). Page 3 gets best Editing and Screenplay.