The Oscars, 2022 have made TV awards a major topic of discussion around the world. We wish the reason for it was not so unfortunate, but nothing can be done about that now. Anyhow, there is a lot that can be said (and wished for) when it comes to Indian award shows as well.
In this podcast from 2018, writer, comic, and director, Varun Grover shares some behind-the-scenes information about the award shows and while we can’t say we are totally surprised, it’s still fascinating…in a bad way.
To begin with, Varun sums up the treatment given to people (if you are not an A-lister) at these big events.
He says that if you make the mistake of reaching early like he did the first time around, God help you because you’d be in the middle of nowhere waiting for hours.
Things generally start at these events around 10 PM and in the next one hour, the producers and camerapersons, take all the footage they can and keep showing it throughout the show.
You remember this one time Nawaz (was it him?) was receiving an award and he was also sitting in the audience clapping for himself? Yeah, now you know how that happened.
What blew my mind was the amount of money people are willing to give to get seats at these shows. According to Varun, the front row seats can go for as much as ₹3 lakhs! And these people are there by 5 PM.
He then narrates an incident involving a very famous actor on a destination award show, and also how Indians in a foreign location (Madrid) once crowded Zayed Khan. The spillover of this crowd, Varun says, reached him and this happened.
You have to watch the full video because Varun’s narration makes everything funnier. Here you go.