Remembering the legends of the century!
Amma all the way, quite literally!
Thanks to two Passes issued by local Kannada sangha, we( Self and son Chinmay) attended the Day 2 of 100 yrs Indian cinema celebrations here at the air-conditioned Indoor auditorium in Chennai , the morning session which was reserved for Kannada film Industry and its achievements and honoring the Industry stalwarts interspersed with Cultural programmes.
The atmosphere was very festive, the roads decked with the CM ‘AMMA’ posters all through and there was a lot of security to pass through before we entered the colorfully decked up stadium.
The inauguration by lighting the lamp was done by B Sarojadevi and Srinath accompanied by Home Minister KJ George.
The music and dance cultural programmes were simply ROCKING!
Many enjoyable moments from past and present were showcased professionally.
It included veteran actress Leelavathi shaking a leg to ‘mellusire savigaana’, Beautiful Bharathi performing to the famous ‘Bala bangara neenu’ and Jayanthi swaying to ‘virahaa…’; songs which were landmarks in their own careers decades ago. Also Shruthi and Tara performed on some oldies from Kalpana films.
Many young and upcoming artistes performed some hot numbers to both old and new film hits.(Whose names I am not aware of…That was more because of the surprising absence of any host /anchor for the programme and so the programmes just went on unannounced; many times the audience had to scratch their heads who they might be?)
Interspersed we had a video film that traced the roots of film making from the first cameras to silent movies to firsts in Indian cinema and Kannada celluloid world through the decades. It was a mesmerizing, thought provoking and grateful recall, worthy of the Centenary year!
The vintage video footage recollected some excellent milestone on-screen performances from Dr Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, Srinath, Prabhakar, Shankar Nag etc from actors; and Leelavathi, Kalpana, Manjula, Jayanthi ,Bharathi, Aarathi and others from actresses.
Many veteran producers, distributors and theatre owners (exhibitors), music directors, cinematographers and stuntmen who have served the industry were honored with mementoes recalling their achievements. Seeing renowned music director Hamsalekha brought back memories of Prema loka hit years, while Rajan of Rajan Nagendra of the bygone melodious decades! Also honored were worthy singer BK Sumithra and Choreographer Mugur Sundaram etc …Senior Actress Jayamala and Actress- Minister Umashree mostly did these honours.
It was a four hour marathon, well attended by enthusiastic Chennai kannadigas in the galleries.
Among the attendees spotted in the VIP rows: Srinath, Rajesh, Sunder raj, KSL Swami, Shivaram, Ramesh Arvind, Ambika, BV Radha and others
Among those who were absent (or not spotted): Ambareesh, Dwarakeesh , Rajkumar family, Anantnag, Sudeep, Darshan, Ravichandran.
I read somewhere that there was some grumbling in the Kannada Industry that their representatives were not invited/ignored etc. Happens in such events!
Some lovely pics of today's event below:
Also read :
ಚೆನ್ನೆಗೆ ಬಂದ ಬಂಗಾರದ ಮನುಶ್ಯ!
