ISSUE
Friday, August 22, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 73
The annual prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Awards event in Mumbai, this time held on the Phalke’s 141st anniversary was a classy blend of vintage glory, traditional ethnic glamour with an undercurrent of heart-warming nostalgia. As most cinema-savvy readers may be aware, that Phalke is known as the ‘Father of Indian Cinema’ having pioneered the silent movies era, with his ‘Raja Harishchandra’ way back in 1913.
Not surprisingly, it was the combination of Awardees (80 plus) DevAnand and (80 plus) Pran Sikand, which won a thunderous ovation when they were presented with the ‘Phalke Ratna’ and the ‘Phalke Icon’ trophies.
As Dev and Pran warmly hugged each other, hundreds of invitees instantly jogged into a ‘flashback’ where they recalled how both of them had played lost-and-found brothers on-screen in this musical yesteryear mega-hit ‘Johnny Mera Naam’ (1970).
Since it was also the eve of the ‘golden jubilee’ of the Maharashtra State formation, State Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal who is also a huge cultural and Hindi movies buff, extolled the phenomenal contribution of all the veteran awardee actors particularly Pran, Dev Anand and previous year awardee Manoj
(‘Mr.Bhaarat’) Kumar who was also present on the jubilant
occasion.
“It’s a great honour for me to be felicitated by the Phalke. Although I need to move on a wheelchair and have lost the strength my legs , hamaare nazron mein abhi bhi dum hai.( Still have strength in my vision). It’s such a joy to see all my movie colleagues and all of you in the audience,” reacted Pran who is fondly remembered for his roles in scores of movies like ‘Upkaar’,’Purab Aur Paschim’ and of course as Pathaan Sher Khan in ‘Zanjeer’ which first launched Amitabh Bachchan as the ‘angry young man’.
In his trademark staccato-style the ‘ageless’ Dev Anand enthused, “Its my prerogative to be conferred with the Academy’s ‘Phalke Ratna’ and I royally salute genius Phalke who gave us the magic-of-movies and the entire talented Hindi film fraternity who have made the colorful, musical Indian motion picture industry the largest in the world.” Unfortunately, either for genuine (“out-of-town”) reasons or commercial reasons (“no appearance fee”), today’s gen-next yuppie stars were conspicuous by their absence at the Phalke Awards.
But as event co-organiser producer Ashok Shekhar (son of veteran Phalke Awardee Chandrashekhar) shrugged with “The show must go on.”
The annual prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Awards event in Mumbai, this time held on the Phalke’s 141st anniversary was a classy blend of vintage glory, traditional ethnic glamour with an undercurrent of heart-warming nostalgia. As most cinema-savvy readers may be aware, that Phalke is known as the...
The annual prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Awards event in Mumbai, this time held on the Phalke’s 141st anniversary was a classy blend of vintage glory, traditional ethnic glamour with an undercurrent of heart-warming nostalgia. As most cinema-savvy readers may be aware, that Phalke is known as the ‘Father of Indian Cinema’ having pioneered the silent movies era, with his ‘Raja Harishchandra’ way back in 1913.
Not surprisingly, it was the combination of Awardees (80 plus) DevAnand and (80 plus) Pran Sikand, which won a thunderous ovation when they were presented with the ‘Phalke Ratna’ and the ‘Phalke Icon’ trophies.
As Dev and Pran warmly hugged each other, hundreds of invitees instantly jogged into a ‘flashback’ where they recalled how both of them had played lost-and-found brothers on-screen in this musical yesteryear mega-hit ‘Johnny Mera Naam’ (1970).
Since it was also the eve of the ‘golden jubilee’ of the Maharashtra State formation, State Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal who is also a huge cultural and Hindi movies buff, extolled the phenomenal contribution of all the veteran awardee actors particularly Pran, Dev Anand and previous year awardee Manoj
(‘Mr.Bhaarat’) Kumar who was also present on the jubilant
occasion.
“It’s a great honour for me to be felicitated by the Phalke. Although I need to move on a wheelchair and have lost the strength my legs , hamaare nazron mein abhi bhi dum hai.( Still have strength in my vision). It’s such a joy to see all my movie colleagues and all of you in the audience,” reacted Pran who is fondly remembered for his roles in scores of movies like ‘Upkaar’,’Purab Aur Paschim’ and of course as Pathaan Sher Khan in ‘Zanjeer’ which first launched Amitabh Bachchan as the ‘angry young man’.
In his trademark staccato-style the ‘ageless’ Dev Anand enthused, “Its my prerogative to be conferred with the Academy’s ‘Phalke Ratna’ and I royally salute genius Phalke who gave us the magic-of-movies and the entire talented Hindi film fraternity who have made the colorful, musical Indian motion picture industry the largest in the world.” Unfortunately, either for genuine (“out-of-town”) reasons or commercial reasons (“no appearance fee”), today’s gen-next yuppie stars were conspicuous by their absence at the Phalke Awards.
But as event co-organiser producer Ashok Shekhar (son of veteran Phalke Awardee Chandrashekhar) shrugged with “The show must go on.”
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