“Goodbye Awards,” Lyricist vows never to attend awards as nationalist song from film Kesari gets thumbs down from Filmfare jury

The Filmfare Awards saw Gully Boy sweep most of the awards which further exposes the uselessness of these awards. A plethora of talent went ignored as the awards yet again succumbed to please the powerful in Bollywood. While the likes of Shahid Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Nitesh Tiwari have every right to feel hard done by, it was Manoj Muntashir who was left reeling in what can be called as the utmost insult to talent and hard work.

The Filmfare Award for best lyricist went to Divine and Ankur Tewari for the Gully Boy song ‘Apna Time Aayega’ over pure gems like ‘Teri Mitti’ and ‘Ve Maahi’ which has prompted Muntashir to boycott all awards till his last breath. The Filmfare awards seem to have gone overboard with their overblown appreciation of Gully Boy as the film bagged 13 awards including all the major ones.

In an emotional post on Twitter, the lyricist of the hit song ‘Teri Mitti’ from the film ‘Kesari’, Muntashir wrote that even if he tries all his life, he won’t be able to write a better line than ‘Tu Kahti Thee Chaand Hoon Main Our Chaand Humesha Rahta Hai’. The film Kesari was widely lauded by the audience with Akshay Kumar delivering one of his career-best performances.

The song ‘Teri Mitti’ stood out in the film as it managed to spur the emotions of Indians as the song beautifully captured what it means to sacrifice one’s life for their country. Muntashir rightly felt insulted and hence decided to not attend any award function till his last breath.

It is almost impossible to not get emotional while listening to ‘Teri Mitti’ and it is hard to gulp down the fact that ‘Apna Time Aayega’ which has words like ‘Tu nanga hi to aaya hai kya ghanta leke jaayega’ prevail over such a rich song. All the nominees were better than ‘Apna Time Aayega’ by leaps and bounds with songs like ‘Tujhe Kitna Chahne Lage’ and ‘Bekahayali’ from Kabir Singh also being ignored. Parineeti Chopra agreed to do Kesari despite having a negligible screen time just because she was swooned over by the soulfulness of ‘Teri Mitti’.

The Filmfare Awards have yet again disrespected true talent and hard work and meekly bowed down to the Bollywood’s elite. Apart from ‘Teri Mitti’, even Kabir Singh failed to garner a single award despite Shahid Kapoor’s career-best performance and a rousing hit music album which aided the film’s roaring success.

It would be foolhardy to think that Filmfare who awarded the best debut actor (female) to Ananya Pandey for her role in ‘Student Of The Year 2’ cared to award the best talent in the country. While Taapsee Pannu and Bhumi Pednekar might have won the Critics’s Choice Award for Best Female Actor for their role in ‘Saand Ki Aankh’, they weren’t even deemed worthy of a nomination for the award for Best female actor despite their superlative stereotype shattering performance in ‘Saand Ki Aankh’ which further proves that those with no big surnames will continue to be relegated to inconsequential awards. As if to rub salt into the wounds, Alia Bhatt won the award for her role in Gully Boy. The Filmfare awards have nothing but made a mockery of talent.

While one can understand Muntashir’s decision to boycott all awards, one cannot imagine his pain to miss out despite making a masterpiece which was light years ahead of its competition. Unfortunately, it seems that money and muscle power has won over talent and hard work in this year’s edition of Filmfare awards.