The sixth edition of the Ghanta Awards aims to honour the worst in Bollywood, in hilarious style
Even as Bollywood’s award season wraps up, it’s time for the industry’s worst performances to be awarded. The sixth edition of the Ghanta Awards, India’s answer to the Razzies, will be handed out tonight, to celebrate some truly bad performances at the movies last year.
The ceremony, which had been hosted by comedy collective East India Comedy (EIC), since the past few years is going to see some fresh presenters this edition. Delhi comics Neeti Palta and Sanjay Rajoura will be joining Radhika Vaz and Manan Desai to present the Ghantas this time around. Both Neeti and Radhika were surprised that they were approached to host the shows, since they both don’t have any connection with Bollywood. “I think this happens with all comics, you’re not an expert on everything you’re called to talk about and my knowledge of Bollywood as a whole is fairly flimsy, but there’s so much you can say about the quality of movies,” said Radhika, on being a first time presenter of the Ghantas.
Quite like the Golden Raspberry or the Razzies, the Ghantas too have special categories of awards. Besides the regular worst movie, actor, actress and director, the night will see awards being handed out for categories like ‘worst brand endorsement’ whose nominees include Farhan Akhtar’s Ramdev Baba inspired look for a biscuit brand, a mannequin in a Saif Ali Khan advertisement that dances better than the actor himself, and Ranveer Singh for his version of endorsement of both undergarments and condom brands alike.
Another popular category is that of ‘most controversial controversy’ that includes nominations for Kangana Ranaut calling Hrithik Roshan her ‘silly ex,’ and Anushka Sharma being blamed for Virat Kohli’s poor batting performance.
What’s more interesting is that Karan Anshuman, a founder of the Ghanta Awards has seen his own movie Bangistan receive nominations in two categories — Riteish Deskhmukh for worst actor and Pulkit Samrat for worst supporting actor. Says Karan, “I think it’s important to establish that the Ghantas are the fairest awards. We go on merit, no matter what. Even if I have a vested interest, it’s up to the jury to decide who deserves nomination. Me being associated with the Ghantas has nothing to do with the nominations.” Karan is also hopeful that Riteish, who had turned up in 2014 to collect an award for his movie Grand Masti, will grace the occasion again.
The mention of Riteish makes Neeti laugh. “I think Riteish does movies to get the Ghantas; he doesn’t work for the money any more, he works for our award,” she says.
Actor and host Manish Paul, who has been nominated for his movie Ranbanka in the ‘WTF was that’ category, shot a video asking his fans to vote for him so he gets the award, as did comedian Sunil Grover, who in mock derision asked people to not vote for him.
The founders and hosts on their part are glad that the Ghantas have found a warm acceptance in Bollywood. Karan says, “With every year, the Ghantas are growing. Sometimes people themselves reach out to us and ask if they can come. When we started out no one knew how to deal with it but now they realise it’s harmless fun. And if you attend, you end up getting a lot more appreciation from people because you’re laughing at yourself, a trait that Bollywood was known to lack. But now the industry is opening itself to humour. Even with the whole AIB event that was staged, that too was very cool.”
With inputs from Rohit Bhatnagar
