‘King Khan’ of Bollywood is in the house and Melbourne cannot keep it calm.
A chorus of shrieks, swoons and selfies greeted the immensely popular actor Shah Rukh Khan as he entered the Palais Theatre for the awards night of the ongoing Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) on Thursday.
Bollywood stars at the awards night of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. Source: IFFM
The superstar who was bestowed with the ‘Excellence in Cinema’ award at the star-studded night credited Melburnians for being the ‘best audience’ and also shared anecdotes from his time in the city that he spent while shooting his blockbuster film ‘Chak De India’ in 2007.
“Many years ago in 2006-07, I came here when I was a rising superstar giving hit films after hit films. And now I am back here again, still, a rising superstar not making as many hit films (chuckles), as much as I would want to do so. I thank everyone for the opportunity to speak here,” Mr Khan said at the IFFM awards night.
The event was also graced by eminent personalities of the Indian cinema, including Karan Johar, Tabu, Zoya Akhtar, Arjun Kapoor, Malaika Arora, Amaal Mallik and Simi Grewal to Vijay Sethupathi and Gayathrie from South among many other notable names.
Filmmaker Karan Johar also took the stage to celebrate 20 years of his film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and spoke at length about the contribution of diasporic and foreign audiences to Indian cinema.
“Earlier we would focus on box office collections from the UK, USA and UAE, but now Australia too has emerged as a huge market for Indian films over the years.
“Australia, may the power of a solid cine goer always be with you," said Mr Johar.
Adding powerful music notes to the show was multiple performances by the talented Melbourne Symphony Orchestra which kept the audiences enchanted with its deeply moving renditions of Bollywood numbers from SRK’s films and later also performed in collaboration with music composer Amaal Mallik.
The SRK effect culminated into a befitting finale with a giant selfie with all the stars and with ‘Badshah Khan’ shaking his leg to ‘Chhaiyan Chhaiyan’ making the crowd jump out of their seats and on to their dancing feet.
