by Shaheen Raaj

Javed Jaffrey, son of veteran funster Jagdeep, is an ace comedian cum versatile actor in his own right. The body of his work too, cannot just be recounted on one’s finger tips. Of late his most talked about film was the Malyalam flick named ‘Picket 43’. That apart he had also earned a lot of accolades in films like ‘Mr Joe B. Carvalho’, ‘Bang Bang’ to name just 2. And surprisingly he has just I film in his kitty namely ‘Total Dhamaal’. When asked the reason for this, he just brushed off the query in his own inimitable style, “Sir! We are here to celebrate the announcement of the 1st ever Arab Indo Bollywood Award (AIBA). So let’s talk about it.” This conversation took place when I had recently bumped into him at the The Leela Hotel at the press conference of the Arab Indo Bollywood Awards (AIBA).

Okay! So tell us in a nutshell what is Arab Indo Bollywood Award (AIBA) all about?

First things first. The Arab Indo Bollywood Award is entirely director Tigmanshu Dhulia’s baby. And myself, Arbaaz Khan, Goldie Behl, Shyam Shroff, Komal Nahta, Sridhar Raghavan & Anees Bazmi are just like the caretaker of this baby. But jokes apart and on a serious note I would like to state that all the above mentioned people including me are on the jury panel of the 1st ever Arab Indo Award (AIBA).

Go on!

So to continue I would like to add that the first ever Arab Indo Bollywood Award (AIBA) event will be held on 10th Apr, 2015 at Dubai as Bollywood has millions of its fans in Gulf countries and with this award sincere efforts are being made to promote Indian films out there. To start off with, a jury panel of this out of the box award ceremony was formed and Tigmanshu Dhulia was appointed as the chairman of this jury. And as I mentioned earlier the other prominent members of this jury are myself, Arbaaz Khan, Goldie Behl, Shyam Shroff, Komal Nahta, Sridhar Raghavan & Anees Bazmi. These awards will have 3 categories and these are Main Awards, Technical Awards & Special Awards. The winners of the 1st 2 categories will be chosen by public voting while the jury members will select the winners of the Special Awards.

And what is so special about the Arab Indo Bollywood Award (AIBA)?

The main highlight of the Arab Indo Bollywood Award (AIBA) is that it will promote Indian films in Gulf countries, AIBA will also arrange the premiere of 1 Indian film every month there and the 1st film to be premiered is ‘Roy’. It’s premiere is being held on 12th Feb, 2015.

Would you like to add anything more?

As a parting shot we, that is the jury members, would like to add in unison that with this award Bollywood would come close to the people of the Gulf countries and we are happy that a proper platform is being offered to promote our films there. Besides UAE’s premiere event management, Entertainment Agency Benchmark Media & India’s Global Entertainment Agency have joined hands to make the Arab Indo Bollywood Award (AIBA) a big successful event. Amen!