“Aishwarya deserves awards but Sarbjit revolves around Randeep” – Amaal Malik

By Faridoon Shahryar -

February 17, 2017 - 10:17 AM IST

Amaal Malik wrote a scathing Facebook post tearing into the hypocrisy surrounding the award shows in Bollywood. Armaan Malik had expressed his displeasure about not being nominated for any of his songs in spite of having several big hits in 2016. In an exclusive with Bollywood Hungama's Content Head Broadband Faridoon Shahryar Amaal and Armaan share their thoughts on why they took the stand. You can also watch the video of what they have to say which is embedded with this article.

“Aishwarya deserves awards but Sarbjit revolves around Randeep” – Amaal Malik

You recently earned a lot of respect when you took a stand against entire awards thing, things have changed immediately. We saw how Diljit Dosanjh got an award for Udta Punjab…
Are you saying Diljit got an award because of me? (Laughs!)

The fact is that he was nominated in the earlier two award functions as well but he was conveniently overlooked. Even apart from that you mentioned Akshay Kumar for Airlift.
I said something which usually will not be said as supporting Diljit sir and Akshay sir is something which brought a lot of attention. People said why you disown your own nomination, I was nominated for Baaghi and I said maybe there are other albums that deserved that space instead of that album. I also mentioned Randeep Hooda for Sarbjit. There were many things; I just took a stand against a whole thing. A lot of people would want to say what I said. I didn’t waited ke list aayegi nominations ki phir main daalunga. It was incidental that Filmfare was around the corner but it was an indication for all the awards. If someone has come to our industry and done a fabulous job, you’ve to give at least nomination which helps him believe ki jo maine kiya usse jagah mili, win or lose doesn’t matter. Generally artist ko lagta hai either you work for the money or name. Music is such a thing that at the end of the day I don’t think I or any musician work for money. Aap kisi musician ko 1 Lac do ya 10 Lacs do. He’ll try and create his best within it. At some award function, when I won an award for Roy, they just straight away gave the award, at least mention the number of people nominated in the category. If you don’t mention and straight give the award you’re saying that there was no competition? The audience that see you, following that I and Armaan had made with our work or any artist; they are like your family who have never met you. They are waiting to hear your name on Television, they get disappointed and start feeling that injustice happens. It should be taken as a message to stand for the right thing, win or lose doesn’t matter nominate the right people.

Armaan, you have also spoken about awards as well…
Armaan: I didn’t know Amaal is writing a post on this. I found out when I was in my hotel room and I logged in my account and I saw his big post but before that I had put a post. I’d sung a lot of songs this year and somewhere I felt a little disappointed that I was not nominated in any of the categories as best singer but then I spoke to dad after that and then he said this is what I’ve been preparing you for, these are the times, let it go, move on forward, go and do the things that the world will remember. I took it in that way, that’s my perspective, his perspective was to put it out. I kept it to myself; little bit I put it out because I felt disheartened. I’ve sung ‘Bol Do Na Zara’; I’ve sung ‘Sab Tera’ and all other songs which reached out to people’s hearts. ‘Bol Do Na Zara’ was from Azhar, which did not did well at the box office but the song in itself touched people’s hearts. Songs from M. S. Dhoni - The Untold Story – ‘Besabriyaan’ and ‘Jab Tak’; I deserved a nomination for those song so I wrote that.

Amaal: See, deserving a nomination and asking for nomination I don’t think there is any shame in that. Lot of people from industry, I’ll not name them, called me and asked me you should have only spoken about music category; you should have said why you’ve not nominated my album, Dhoni or Airlift. I said I was not writing it for that, my motive was write it for a deserving actor, who I said was Akshay Kumar for Airlift or deserving debutant like Diljit Dosanjh. Randeep Hooda has done so much mehnat to like that man, no doubt Aishwarya Rai has done a great job so people made it look like I am attacking her image that she did not deserve it. She deserved but the film revolved around a man who did everything to make us believe that he is Sarbjit. In the process I felt mera jo album hai mujhe unme se nahi laga, jaise you see Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is a great album and many other albums have been missed out. Neerja is a good album and there are many offbeat albums Clinton Cerejo has done. So if you don’t nominate them at Filmfare, nominate them at GIMA or Radio Mirchi. I think everyone should collaborate for every music. Bahar hum dekhten hai, Grammys mein and everywhere there is a best EDM song, best rock song – they have winners of so many artists and genres and music is so big there. Today the newcomers that are coming, it’s for them I took a stand. If I don’t say this today, tomorrow no new boy will get up to become a music director. There are musicians like Vishal Khurrana, I really liked his work in Neerja, and these things need mentioning ke jeete ya hare just make a new composer, actor, director or any technician welcomed in the industry which is not happening.