A Time for Heroes

Sun TV screened ‘A Time for Heroes’ on Sunday. It was a show organized by the Heroes Project to promote AIDS awareness and was held in Hyderabad in October. The primary attraction ofcourse was that it was attended by many top stars from all 4 South Indian film industries. But though it mostly followed the format of awards shows, the reason behind the show made it seem more worthwhile than those shows.

Here are some highlights that I can remember, from the show (in no particular order):

- Like the Filmfare awards show, this one too was preceded by a behind-the-screens look with interviews with the technicians, peeks at the rehearsals and chats with the stars as they got ready for the show. I liked this segment since it appreciates the people who do the grunt work to make the show run smoothly but who usually don’t get the credit for it.

- Sun TV donated proceeds from the advertisements to AIDS awareness programs, which I thought was a nice touch.

- Among Tamil stars, I saw Kamal, Vikram, Sarathkumar & Radhika, Simbhu, Prabhu Deva, Sadha, Sandhya, Genelia, Revathi and Sumalatha. The Telugu cineworld seemed to be represented better probably since the show was held in Hyderabad. The Andhra CM was the Chief Guest.

- Kamal and Jayaram introduced Sidharth, a 3rd standard student, who played drums to their kunnakkol (term courtesy my mom). It was the best part of the show since it was very different from what we usually get to see and introduced a really talented youngster.

- Sun TV's interviews with the stars were pretty standard stuff. Dr.Rajasekhar and his wife Jeevitha were two who said something useful. They did a Q&A session between them and answered questions on patients’ privacy concerns, etc. Though sloppily done, it was something useful instead of the standard “I am honored to attend this show”-type replies.

- Sarathkumar and Radhika introduced a couple who are both HIV + but whose son is not. Sarath’s speech about them was very good.

- Richard Gere was classy. He gave a great speech that was very heartfelt and joined in with some vocal background music for the final song.

- Sania Mirza spoke well. It’s the first time I’ve seen her (apart from a couple of pics of her on the court). It was clear why Simbhu wants to make her act in his movie :-)

- Was nice to see Amala after a long time (she came with Nagarjun). She could still give today’s heroines a run for their money.

- Usha Uthup sang songs from all 4 South Indian languages in her distinctively accented voice.

- Sadha predictably danced for Kannum Kannum Nokia… and Andankaakka…

- Shriya danced solo for the Mazhai song and with Tarun for a song from Enakku 20 Unakku 18 . “Damn excited!”, was her response on being chosen as Rajni’s heroine.

- Chinmayi sang Oru Dheivam… with suitable sobriety. But there seemed to be an audio problem and her voice sounded layered.

- My favorite singer turned out to be Vasundhara Das. She sang just the female segments of Erimalai Naane… and Dating…. The songs sounded exactly like they do on CD and she was very stylish on stage.

- Worst segment was the dance for the song from Manmadhan. The guy (I think he’s a Telugu hero) looked flabby and didn’t dance well, and the gals were dressed pretty skimpily.

- All the stars came together on stage finally to sing a song composed by Ilaiyaraja. But not much rehearsal seemed to have gone into this. Only a few of them put their hearts into it while many were silent, mumbling or worse, talking to their neighbors and laughing. While it was admittedly a star show, I felt the seriousness of the cause deserved a more solemn rendition of the closing number.