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Watching cine awards functions on TV is like having éclairs.
You pick one and decide not to have another,
but by the time it has begun to melt in your mouth, you hear yourself saying:
Ok, one more and that's it. Then one more, and one more.
Similarly, when you run into an awards function - there are a dime a dozen these days - while channel surfing, you say: "Oh no, not again!"
But when they announce one winner,
you instinctively wait to see the next winner, and the winner after that, and so on.
And even before you realise, you've spent about six hours in front of the television, switching it off only after the Best Actor has collected his trophy.

I spent the entire day watching the Filmfare awards, even though I knew, courtesy Filmfare magazine, who had won all the big awards. And I am glad I did so, or else
I would have missed Javed Akhtar's beautiful acceptance speech on getting the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The film industry, he said, served the country like no one else.
"We don't engineer riots, we don't blast bombs," he said.
"We only give dreams to people. We also make them laugh.
And at times, we let them unburden themselves by crying in the darkness of the theatre."

How true!
No other industry champions national integration more than Bollywood.
Workplaces throughout the country, accept it or not, are divided between cultures and religion.
In states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, caste is the wall that often separates cubicles.
In Tamil Nadu, the divide is often between Tamilians and non-Tamilians; and among Tamilians, between Tam Brahms and non-Brahms.
In Kerala and West Bengal, the divide is mainly political.
Forget workplace, I know a family in Kerala where the father and son don't get along because the father is an admirer of Indira Gandhi while the son is a communist-sympathiser.

But in Mumbai, all differences melt.
Even as I write this, the song playing on my Winamp playlist is Kitne bhi tu karle sitam.
It is a hit song from the 1981 film, Sanam Teri Kasam.
The singer? Asha Bhosle, a Marathi.
The composer? R D Burman, a Bengali from Tripura.
The lyricist? Gulshan Bawra, a Punjabi.
The heroine? Reena Roy, a Muslim.
The hero? Kamal Hassan, a Tamilian who could barely speak Hindi then.
Together, they have given an unforgettable song that has no region, religion or caste.

Time was when Muslim actors assumed Hindu screen names
so that the Indian audiences could identify with them.
So Yusuf Khan became Dilip Kumar
But today a real Dilip has become a Rahman, and that has not prevented him from becoming India's No. 1 composer.
As for the Muslim actors, they proudly flaunt the 'Khan' in their names.
Fathers can't tell their daughters not to be crazy about them just because they are Muslims.
Ask yourself: does it ever cross your mind,
when you are watching Rang De Basanti, that Aamir is a Muslim?
Or
that, Mohammad Rafi was a Muslim,
when you listen to the songs of the 1950's and 1960s?

If we choose to be blind to such divides in day-to-day life,
imagine what a paradise India would be.
The previous sentence might sound like a Sunday Sermon,
but then, how many of you know that one of the most popular
Hindu devotional songs in Hindi cinema,
Man tarpat hari darshan from the film Baiju Bawra, was created by three Muslims?
Shakeel Badayuni wrote the song, Naushad set the tune, and Rafi sang it.
If a small nation called Bollywood can do it, why not India?