81st Annual Academy Awards

Two Indians won Oscars on the 81st Annual Academy Awards night. AR Rahman won 2 Oscars for Music(Score) and Music(Song) while Resul Pookutty shared his Oscar with two other colleagues for Sound Mixing.

These two Indians successfully put India on the world map! Before you get agitated, the “India is on the world map” is a rediff headline. Somebody just woke up at the rediff and took a look at the world map for the first time in their life! For your information, we were always there on the map!

Both Rahman and Resul spoke eloquently during the acceptance. For a camera shy person, Rahman did a very good job. I was even surprised when Will Smith flawlessly pronounced “Resul Pookkutty”. That was a hard one!

Although this is a very great achievement for two Indian artists, Slumdog Millionaire(the film associated with the awards) is not an Indian movie. A lot of Indians worked on and behind the camera for this movie. But the movie is not produced by Indians. Having a true-blue Hollywood backing helps in the race. They know the rules of the game!

On this day of national pride, let us thank three gentlemen who were indeed the first to achieve the impossible.

1. Ashustosh Gowarikar for making a clean movie(Lagaan)
2. Aamir Khan for believing in Ashutosh
3. Ronnie Screwvala (UTV) for standing by Ashutosh and Aamir

In 2001, nobody thought we could go to Oscars. Yet, these three gentlemen left no stone unturned to get “Lagaan” into the final five in the “Best Foreign Film” category. They taught the rest of Indian film fraternity to aim high and dream big!