Power Brands BFJ celeb-awardee Boman Irani shares heart-warming sentimental memories

Last night, doyen celeb-actor Boman Irani had the invited audience breaking into cheers and tears when he jogged into ‘memory lane’ sharing heart-warming sentimental memories - Chaitanya Padukone

In the showbiz industry which most of the time believes in the ‘raat-gayi-baat-gayi’ indifferent attitude.Boman is among the rare exemplary exceptions. While accepting his Power Brands-BFJAwards Most Versatile Actor honour from show-host charismatic Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri and also the (event-venue) Hotel Sahara Star CEO Mr. Manish Sodhi, the outspoken Boman cruised into a quick sentimental flashback.

The articulate Boman recalled and appreciated how senior-most film-journalist Jyothi Venkatesh had taken his initial media-interview when as an upcoming actor he had featured in perhaps a first-ever digital movie called ‘Lets Talk’ (year 2002) which was seen by very few people when it was released at a local city film-festival.

This was much before Boman’s debut in his mega-hit movie Munnabhai—MBBS.had released. The witty Boman, with his incredible memory recalled that two decades ago, Jyothi had then told him that “when you start working you may have not give me the time for an interview”..

The warm-hearted Boman later also thanked the entire press-media for being a ‘constant-support-system’ . On an emotional note, the acclaimed actor shared how he highly revered his ‘late’ mother (who passed away during the pandemic) who always checked with him whether he was shown love and respect. Whenever he attended such awards events, that is .

Besides Boman Irani, it was eminent star actress-author Divya Dutta who got the Most Versatile actor award, while celeb Sourabh Shukla was awarded a special award-trophy for his outstanding contribution in Bollywood.

Also felicitated at the same event were glam-actress Shama Sikander and TV star-actress Rashami Desai and of course the super-talented star-actor-dancer Shantanu Maheshwari ( romantic ‘Afsaan-bhai’ of ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ fame)

It’s an unwritten norm for most major awards events that the awardee-stars should ideally be “physically present” while collecting their respective trophies on the stage. Simply because it adds face-value and the awardee star also benefits in terms of media-mileage.

But multifaceted maverick impresario Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri prefers to be daringly different . Even if some of the awardee top-stars don’t turn up, ‘the-show-must-go-on’ is his mission-mantra.

At the year 2022 prestigious Power Brands-Bollywood Film Journalists’ Awards last night, some of the ever-busy awardee mega-stars (like Vicky Kaushal, Kriti Sanon, Vidya Balan etc ) gave their ‘video-bytes’ acceptance-messages, as they were genuinely unable to make it.

While movie ‘83 picked up six of the Roaring Lions including Critics’ Choice Best Film, Sardar Udham and Pushpa are took home five Roaring Lions including Best Director for Shoojit Sarkar. The Best Film along with Four Roaring Lion was bagged by to Shershaah. Which proverbially means literally the ‘lion’s share’ (most of them) of the Awards.

Among the special invitees were Bollywood celeb-guests who attended were gorgeous actress-singer Manjari Fadnnis, Rasika Duggal, Saqib Saleem, Shweta Pandit, Shantanu Maheshwari, Soumik Sen, Yash Pandit, star-singer Shweta Pandit ( who sang extempore on stage ‘Lagg Jaa Galey’ on stage as a fond tribute to late legend Lata Didi ) vivacious model-actress, beauty-queen–motivational speaker Raviraa Bhardwaj and tall, svelte model-actress ( “youngest super-model”) Aiyshaany Shaan.

The event also witnessed the launch of multi-faceted Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri’s latest book – The Tiger Roars The book was unveiled by Boman Irani and Dr. Ritesh Malik of Innov8 fame. The Tiger Roars is a fascinating journey of 12 inspiring success stories mirroring the rise of India- stories picked up carefully from the hinterland to the glamour capital of India, from start-ups to old money.

What makes the Power Brands Awards unique is that, the Awards are given away regardless of the winners’ presence as they are declared well in advance.
Basically it's among the only credible awards in the country and for the same it has garnered huge appreciation and credibility, though still only in its 6th year.

(Both veteran journalist Jyothi Venkatesh and senior journalist Chaitanya Padukone (who has written this above story-article ) were part of the prestigious Jury-Panel of Bollywood Journalists for the Power Brands Awards-2022, besides the other noted journalists.)