To decide the winners in various categories based on the popularity among people, Zee Talkies has been giving away awards to all those associated with Marathi entertainment field. This year, for the year 2010, the awards in the name of ‘Zee Lux Sandal Maharashtracha Favourite Kon?’ were given away to those selected by viewers through voting. Like previous year, this year too Mahesh Manjrekar played the host for the gala evening function held at Mumbai’s Hotel Hyatt Regency at Andheri(E).

Beginning the function by paying tributes to late Debu Deohar, Ajay Sarpotdar, Amit Pawar and Prabhakar Pendharkar, the host tried to explain in a humourous way, as to why he was considered as a favourite host for these awards. Giving a hint about the entertainment programme that followed, he mentioned that the subject of the evening was ‘argument’. In came Makarand Anaspure to argue as to why his film with the title like ‘Hand Pump’ was suitable. “When a name like ‘Vihir’ is accepted, why not a ‘Hand Pump’ used beside the Vihir, is not found suitable,” he questioned.

Makarand has a terrific sense of humour and with that gifted talent, he entertained the selected invitees with his skit for some more time. In between the variety programmes and awards presentation in different categories, witty Mahesh Manjrekar kept on pulling the legs of different people from the industry with his timely jokes. He repeatedly made an announcement calling it a breaking news, only to declare that he heard about a new film of Prasad Oak being released shortly. Obviously, hinting at the soaring number of Marathi films the actor has signed in the recent past. Without naming anyone, he said, “Those who claimed about re-introducing Marathi cinema to the people, found empty theatres for their films.” The clever audience new very well, whom he was hinting at, but took it lightly. The prolific film maker, however appealed to all Marathi people to go and watch Marathi films in the theatre; as the industry had made tremendous progress in all areas.

The indoor hall of Hotel Grand Hyatt was filled with the presence of many artistes from Marathi film industry and prominent among them were Ashok Saraf, Sachin Pilgaonkar( with his wife Supriya), Mahesh Kothare with his son Adinath, Siddharth Jadhav, Saie Tamhankar, Kranti Redkar, Girija Oak, Amrita Khanwilkar, Sonali Kukarni Sr as well as Jr; Sanjay Narvekar, Mrunal Kulkarni, Avadhoot Gupte, Bela Shende, Guru Thakur, Ajay-Atul, Sayaji Shinde and many others who were nominated for awards in different categories. But, those who were surprisingly absent were Sachin Khedekar, Atul Kulkarni & Bharat Jadhav inspite of being nominated.

While Siddharth Jadhav and the so called teenager’s trio( by Mahesh Manjrekar) comprising of Kranti Redkar, Amruta Khanwilkar & Sonalee Kulkarni (Jr)entertained with their classic dance performances, others like Swapnil Bandodkar & Rahul Deshpande mesmerized the audience with their classical jugalbandi. Upcoming ActressSmita Tambe proved her dancing talents while mimicry artiste Nilesh Sable received a big applause for perfectly imitating some of the popular personalities. Highlight of the function was the dance performance by the veteran trio comprising of Ashok Saraf, Mahesh Kothare and Sachin Pilgaonkar together. And, they really did a good job, as they were promoting their forthcoming film ‘Idea Chi Kalpana’.

Most of the Viewer’s choice awards went as per expectations( not being disclosed by MMW for obvious reason) but the so called Na-khare awards, announced by Mahesh Manjrekar to create humour on the lines of Filmfare’s Na-real awards left a bad taste. Looking at the traditional Marathi culture, it was certainly not proper to humiliate some of the talented artistes for trying out something different. Sayaji Shinde, who has made a record of doing 300 South films, was presented with a Lungi. Actresses like Amruta, Kranti and Resham were presented with Maherchi Saadi, while bald actor Vaibhav Mangle was presented with a comb and hair oil. It was okay to present a watch to Sonalee Kulkarni(Jr) for her large number dance performances on the song ‘Vaajale ki 12’, but it was improper to announce this category award to a reputed actor like Sandeep Kulkarni for his dance performance in ‘Gaiir’, which was considered as an awkward act. Sandeep was conspicuously absent for the function.

The overall function of little more than three hours offered variety entertainment. Needless to say that it will be telecast in few days time. By the way, Zee Talkies is now into its fourth year and henceforth be known as ‘Aapla Talkies Zee Talkies’.