To Zee and back…
I am a huge fan of Bollywood I am. But I have to admit that I was not like this when I was growing up. Growing up, I watched my fair share of Bollywood movies but I was not proud of it.. Probably it wasn’t cool… not the ‘IN’ thing amongst my friends. So when I watched them, I’ll deny as much as I can about it. I’m Malay… but dunno why I have this deep deep love for Bollywood.
In my teens, I started opening up to Bollywood to my friends. It was still not the coolest thing on earth but I guess I couldn’t resist the HOT HOT men in Bollywood and also the love stories that came along with it.
As I left my teens and approach adulthood, I realised that I have to be myself. Then, I decided that I shall be what I want to be or like what I want to like rather than be shameful of it. There, it started my HUGE HUGE craze for Bollywood OPENLY.
The only source of movies I got was the VCDs that my parents bought or the movies that were shown on TV. My parents never brought me to the movies to watch Hindi movies as they said it was a waste of time. –Sigh-
I met my husband in 2002. He sat at a desk near beside mine. On that fateful day, my radio was playing a song from Sangam. As I was marking, I was having a conversation with my colleague- about Bollywood. I started ranting about Bollywood and all. I remembered that I saw he had a smile on his face and later on, he told me that he was kind of impressed with this Malay girl with her knowledge of Bollywood. There, I already created an impression and the rest is history… lol!
IIFA 2004
I missed the IIFA awards in 2004 coz of my own fault of not getting the tickets early. Pfft! Still has not forgiven myself for it! Nevertheless, IIFA 2004 will always have a special place in my heart. The number of artists that I met and fell in love with was the ultimate. I remember falling in love with Hrithik.
I staked out at the airport for the stars. At about 1am, I heard that Hrithik was exiting the customs gates and I started running to the arrival door. There were close to 20 people there. Everyone wanted a picture and a handshake. It was noisy. Pushing and shoving. I didn’t know what came over me. I stood at the edge of his car and screamed, “Hrithik, I LOVE YOU!!!!!!’ It was so loud that everyone turned and stopped whatever they were doing. (LOL!) And then Hrithik looked up and into my directions. Our eyes met. And he said, “I love you too.” My knees went weak. I could hear violins playing in the background and he held out his hand s to take my book to sign it. There it made my day, night, month, year… everything. Lol…
Apart from my love Hritik, there were others too whom made my time staking out special. J Will always love IIFA 2004 (apart from missing the main show! Pfft.
ZEE CINE AWARDS 2011
What could I say? When I heard ZEE CINE AWARDS was coming, I was overjoyed and I told myself that no matter what I will NOT miss the show. Every day, I will go on the SISTIC website to find out if they tickets are out on sale. When they started to go on sale, I was shocked at the ticket prices! The cheapest was $200 (inclusive of the SISTIC fees). Damn! But since me and hubby have told ourselves that no matter what, we will not miss the show, we did not. We gathered our family and confirmed the number of tickets we needed.
3 days before the show, we decided to do our stake-out. We wanted to see the stars in person. We were not the kind to pester an actor/singer for a picture. We will just wave and say hi and ask if it’s possible to take a photograph. If not, we’ll just move away.
On the 2nd day of the stake out, we got lucky. Mr Lalit (music producers) came out of the arrival hall. My hubby has really good eyes and his ability to recognise artists is truly superb! And we snapped away… then came Mr Rishi Kapoor and Mdm Neetu Singh. What do u think happened? A Kapoor will always be a Kapoor. Hubby came forward to welcome him to our country and he just said, “Ya thank you.” Asked for a photo and he said,”no.” Didn’t even smile nor look at us or any other fans that were there. Just hurried the organisers who waited a long while for him and left. We were pissed in the beginning but I guess why even bother about neither him nor his attitude. Not worth it! We left T3 and head on to T2, hoping that our luck is a little better. We made friends with one of the ZEE event organisers, Hafeez. He was giving us little hints about the actors who were coming and what we could expect from them. Then came Mr Shatrugan Sinha. I and hubby was a little ‘fearful’. Why? Maybe of the characters he played or maybe his outlook- being a politician and all. When we stepped out of the arrival door, hubby just took a chance and went forward and welcomed him to our country and to our surprise, he was all smiles and was so accommodating. We were very happy and he made our day. As we were walking out of the arrival hall, we turned back and saw that he actually took photos with a group of monks from Thailand. So cute!
The day before the show, we increased our stake out. Lol. I made a new friend. The concierge from MBS who was assisting to arrange transportation for the stars. Just perfect! I saw the whole listings of the stars transport arrangement and also their exit doors – the normal arrival hall or the CIQ complex. Most of the stars were heading out through the CIQ L but we stayed, hoping that someone would come out from the arrival doors. Met cousins Nana and Shasha too – staking out! Hahah… so in the end we met Richka Sharma (a singer) and Ali Zafar (the actor from Tere Bin Laden). And FYI, Ali Zafar is cute!
14th January came and we were very excited. Checking into MBS for the second time gave me goose bumps. Mainly, my mother-in-law was coming along so I was pretty scared if MBS screwed up (which they did but that’s totally a different story). Anyway, we went round looking for stars in which we could snap a picture with. So here, we met CHUNKEY PANDEY, ADITYA KAPOOR and WAJID (SAJID-WAJID). Yeah…
The tickets said that we had to be seated by 7.30pm. we got ready and glam it up, kissed eshaan and emraan good night and headed off excitedly. I wasn’t too sure about dressing up as we were sitting at the last ticket section. But to my surprise, most people were really dressed up! Some even wore gowns like those worn in academy awards and all! i guess it’s not always one can go for an award function.
We had to go through several barriers before being able to enter the doors of the event. 3 places where they checked our tickets- bag search stations – hand-stamped station and then the main door. Everyone was so excited. After all the several stations, we arrived with probably a thousand others at the main event door. There was neither any line nor queue. It was just a whole group of people lumped together. My sissy in law met a few of her friends and that we were having similar thoughts on how unorganised it was. When the doors were opened, it was like a madhouse! Everyone rushed in. don’t understand why they did that though as all the seats were numbered. We didn’t want to rush in but since we were in the middle of it all, we were naturally pushed in and had to go with the flow.
I bought my tickets through 2 different channels – one was from SISTIC and the other from the MBS package. The ones from SISTICS, we had little choice in where we could sit. But I remembered going through lots of hassle and late nights to secure the best seats that I could. But still it was one of the back seats. L Then I had the opportunity to get tickets from MBS with their ZEE package. Still it was not the best seats. We sat somewhere in the middle of the section but we had a stupid camera beam which blocked our view to the so-called big screen. There’s no point in viewing directly to the stage as it was practically blocked. And the so-call big screen? I think the screen in my school hall is much much bigger!
Seats. It was very very expensive tickets. I think it is one of the most expensive tickets I’ve ever bought. When I was looking through the SISTIC website, it was said that the seats were tiered. Tiered seats to me means that no matter how far back you are, you are at least a head up from the person in front of you. And tiered seats mean that every row of step has a seating row. But I guess MBS have a different meaning to the word tiered totally. They had steps – HUGE steps. Each step, they actually put 3 rows of seats. For example, row A, B and C will be on the same step and row D, E and F will be on the next step. So what’s so tiered about it? Pfft!
Ok, so here we are. Seated down at 7.40pm. At 8.15pm came an announcement for all guests to take their seats and be ready for the show. 8.30pm. Another announcement came. It said, “Everyone please take your seat. You either sit down or leave the hall!” I looked at hubby and my cousins. WTH. It was a very rude announcement. We paid tickets – very expensive tickets to see the show and there you went asking us to leave? Idiots! They actually opened the doors of the hall late and they expect 3000 odd people to be seated in what, 5 minutes? Ridiculous.
Show started at 8.45pm. After 1 hr 15 mins of waiting. Everyone around me was agitated about the whole waiting time already. And more cock ups happened. Camera. It’s so irritating. There were like 10-15 cameras around the whole event with probably 5 cameras just to take of the stars alone but apparently only one camera was working. For a good 20 minutes, they had only focussed on the Sinha’s family and some shots of the stars legs and sometimes the carpet! Such BULL! Some of the guests got really angry and stormed out of the hall asking for refunds. While some actually went down to the organisers and demand them to rectify the whole problem. Then came the announcement that there was some technical difficulties. Oh, come on.
At last after 20 minutes of legs and carpet and more of the Sinha’s family faces, we had a show. Oh, the set design. That was another boo-boo. They had Chinese characters as the background, two stupid merlions in the centre of the stage and Chinese lanterns at the sides. Hmmm… hello? I thought Singapore was a multi-racial country? And not only that, the opening act for the night was Chinese dancers with Chinese drums. Very Singapore indeed.
I shall not in depth for the whole show coz I might be as lengthy as a Harry Potter’s book. Lol. All can say is that the whole show is draggy. It wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. Looking back, there was not as many stars as IIFA 2004 had. The venue sucked big time. The performances were a disappointment. It was more like a rehearsal for the stars. Deepika’s performance was like an aerobics work out session rather than a performance. So sad. But she’s a real beauty though. I think the only ones which stood out were Arjun Rampal’s performance and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s performance. I’m sorry Shah Rukh fans but to me his performance was like a mini stage show. Not the same as any other shows you’ve done in any other award function. But he did bring the house alive but it was too late then coz it was after 12am. Even the award presenters were repeated or one star had to give out several awards at the same time. So it was confirmed that not a lot of stars came to the show. Very disappointing indeed.
One of the main highlights of the show was Priyanka Chopra doing the Best Film Nominees. She was superb! She was able to re-enact the nominees parts really well especially Salman in Dabangg and Shah Rukh in My Name is Khan. I have a totally different opinion about her and her abilities. Well done Priyanka Chopra. At least you have kept me entertained that night.
The whole show ended at about 1 plus in the morning. We were all very tired, hungry and disappointed. I actually fell asleep during the show itself. Some of the viewers also left in the midst of the show. It was draggy and a disappointment. I actually told hubby that I would not want to watch any more award function and concerts especially those held at MBS. They screwed up too especially the so-called tiered sitting.
The next day, we staked out at the lobby and we met JACQUELINE FERNANDEZ. She’s so pretty. During the show, she had a dance number. She looked hotter in person than what she wore during the event itself. We decided to go to the airport for lunch. And so coincidentally there were a few Mumbai flights outgoing from Singapore. So at the airport we met BOMAN IRANI, RONIT ROY, NIKHEL DIWEIDI, SONAKSHI SINHA and VIDYA BALAN.
BOMAN IRANI. He is such a darling. He was so accommodating. He actually took time off from his checking in and took time to sign autographs and asking each of the girls there their names and the correct spelling for it. So sweet. Awwww… He said good bye to all of us and gave us flying kisses each. Love u Boman!
RONIT ROY. He is known to be the Shah Rukh of the TV screen. Well, all I can say is if you want to be SRK in any screen, you ought to learn how to behave like him.
NIKHEL DIWEDI. The actor from My Name is Anthony Gonsalves. I don’t know him that much or heard about him that much. So there just the name of the movie he was in.
SONAKSHI SINHA. A real beauty. As accommodating as her father. She was at row 4 at t2 with her mum and her personal assistant. There were a lot of people trying to get her autograph or even a picture with her. She was still all smiley and tried her very best to take photos with all there and sign as many autographs she could. My sissy in law just stood at the side and called out her name. she obligingly turned and smile. So sweet… J My sissy also wished her mum – Mrs Sinha, a pleasant flight. And Mrs Sinha touched her hand and said, “Thank you. So sweet.” Nice right?
VIDYA BALAN. I saw her in the first class lounge and we called out to her to take a photo with us but she had to go. So we were just hanging out by the departure gates waving our goodbyes to Sonakshi Sinha. And suddenly, Vidya Balan came out of the first class lounge to head over to the immigration counters. We actually asked her through hand signals to take a picture from the glass panels. And she did! So there, our picture with Vidya Balan. J
That’s our Zee weekend. Most of the stars we had our pictures with actually received awards during the show. In all, it kind of bitter sweet for me. Sweet that I got to take pictures with a few of the stars but yet bitter. Bitter that the show was not as what I expected it to be. Bitter that MBS spoilt the whole sitting arrangement. Bitter that the hotel screwed up a second time. It’s not only me but I feel that I was robbed away of my money. Comparing to the past awards shows or even just the IIFA 2004 award show in Singapore- this show was nothing. I am upset. My family is upset. And talking to most of the people who came and watch the show, they were also very disappointed with the whole event. Sigh.
(Pictures are on my FB acct )
