TBT: Sridevi at iifa: The green carpet, the red gown, and the Goddess of Stage! A memorable appearance by Sridevi in Canada, when it was officially announced that she was returning to the big screen with English Vinglish after a decade of keeping people guessing.
The iifa awards were on recently and as always, the prizes were given to anyone who turned up. A free vacation for stars, a laughable judging panel, it's hardly a merit based award ceremony, where they make up categories on the go as stars turn up. The rule of thumb generally is, if the star's sitting on the front row, he/she is picking up a golden trophy.
Used to love watching it when Sridevi attended or Aishwarya Rai did or the Bachchans did for the sheer glamour of it all. Now of course, the A-list only turn up if they are guaranteed acknowledgement or are getting paid huge amounts of foreign currency to perform on stage. A handful of starlets and wannabes turn up for the free flight and stay!
Have sadly also witnessed the worst dances by stars too; namely, Sonam Kapoor and... so reluctant to type this but it was Parineeti Chopra. Pari is a lovely actress and truly one of the better talents on and off screen, and she was wonderful to the press and fans... but, but, but she has zero stage presence, had the worst stage outfit, and can't shake a leg. Meanwhile, Sonam Kapoor was stiff as a cardboard and whoaaa, dreadful. Was like watching a kid in highschool barely pass the elementary stage of dancing, but getting the applause by the teary-eyed family. Which we also saw... (Anil was in the audience and his wife Sunita Kapoor who is profoundly bored of Bollywood!).
Not all stars can be everything to everyone. Manoj Bajpai and Tabu are wonderful actors, but both have performed poorly on stage when it comes to the song and dance routines expected of Bollywood's top tier stars. Manoj did this weird crow dance at Filmfare that was the worst thing I've ever seen. And Tabu in... say it with me... Thakshak. It has millions of views on YouTube as the music by AR Rahman is incredible, but ask any classical Indian dancer - they all cringe when they watch it. And I say it being a mega Tabu fan--she's easily the greatest actress of her generation, bar none. Hema Malini can dance like a dream, but as an actress... well, she's no Tabu either!
Obviously not all are like Sridevi who could do it all. And then some!
RELATED FEATURES
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- Sridevi at iifa over the years here.
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