Please be fair: Amaal Mallik on Indian film awards

Mumbai, Jan 14 (IANS) Composer Amaal Mallik, who is up for Best Music Album honour at the 62nd Jio Filmfare Awards here, has asked jury members of award shows to nominate people as per their talent and their body of work, otherwise they will be making a "joke of our film industry".

The young composer is nominated for his work in the films "Baaghi" and "Kapoor & Sons" at the Jio Filmfare Awards on Saturday night .

Without taking names of any awards and thanking for nominations, he wrote on Facebook on Friday: "I am ashamed to be nominated for 'Baaghi', and I know my director and producers might hate me for making this remark, but it was a a very pathetically average album. I'm not crying about myself here, I should be happy I have two nominations almost everywhere this year but yes, it's funny!

"Please do a survey and you will know only 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil', 'Dangal', 'Sultan', 'Kapoor & Sons', 'Baar Baar Dekho', 'Airlift' and 'Sanam Re' till a point are the albums that the public has loved."

He also commented on debut actor awards.

Amaal finds it "so funny and surprising that you go out of your way and give a star kid all the newcomer awards for the best debut, for a performance no one even saw whereas a Diljit Dosanjh who deserved that award for 'Udta Punjab' is nowhere!"

This is perhaps a dig at actor-producer Anil Kapoor's son Harshvardhan for his performance in the 2016 film "Mirzya".

He even questioned the jury's decision to nominate Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for her act in the critically acclaimed film "Sarbjit", which saw Randeep Hooda playing the title role.

"'Sarbjit' had Randeep Hooda almost killed himself to bones, and play that character, and you nominate only Aishwarya Rai Bachchan!"

He further asked why Neeraj Pandey was not nominated for the Dhoni biopic or Raja Menon for "Airlift".

"A nomination is an acknowledgment of good work, well that's what I know, but we are disregarding the contribution people have made to the year with their good music and good films, and great performances. What happened to 'Aligarh' and 'Airlift' as films, Manoj Bajpayee was incredible and so was Akshay Kumar," said the nephew of composer Anu Malik.

"By not nominating someones' work is a mark of disrespect to that individual."

"Please be fair and nominate a 'Dangal' that was honest to the script too and yet is a rage today and is topping charts. Out of respect for seniors, you can't just keep nominating them for stuff that hasn't even been appreciated or even heard by 90 per cent of india."

He says winning or losing doesn't matter.

"The point is, after tremendous hit singles like 'Jab tak', 'Kaun tujhe' and 'Besabriyaan', 'Sab tera' and 'Bol do na zara', the award jury decided not to nominate Armaan Malik for his work."

Amaal, who is sibling of the singer, said he is not speaking as a brother.

"We all ball talk about welcoming youngsters with open arms and supporting them, well I think the rise of Armaan Malik as a voice has barely begun, and even if you try to duck youngsters like him, they will keep bouncing back and hitting charts."

"But if you don't nominate good work, you aren't even inspiring the deserving hard working people to deliver better."

He also requested not to nominate music that only "your jury members sit at home and applaud over starters and drinks".

"At least nominate people as per their talent and their body of work every year. By not doing so you are making a joke of our film industry and the public backslash is huge, every accolade seems so unreal and planned, new awards to keep people happy are coming up," he concluded.