“According to me, the best actor is Aamir Khan for Ghajini. This is for you Aamir, from me and the people,” Akshay Kumar said in a passionate and touchingly modest speech after being chosen for the Best Actor in Popular Category (Male) Award for Singh is Kinng at the Nokia 15th Annual Star Screen Awards. Akshay left the Award statuette on the podium.

Aishwarya Rai, winner of the Best Actor in Popular Category (Female) Award, said she would accept, but only on behalf of the entire crew of Jodhaa Akbar.

On a sultry evening, populated by innumerable stars in the sky and on the ground at Mumbai’s sprawling MMRDA Grounds, Priyanka Chopra received the Award for Best Actor (Female) for Fashion and Hrithik Roshan for Best Actor (Male) for Jodhaa Akbar.

Jodhaa Akbar won Best Film, and its director Ashutosh Gowarikar shared Best Director with Neeraj Pandey for A Wednesday. A R Rahman won the Award for the Best Background Score (Jodhaa Akbar). Pandey also won Best Debut Director for A Wednesday, which won the Award for Best Story.

In a celebration of the different in Bollywood, Rock On!! joined A Wednesday in a run on the awards, both films winning a fistful. Rock On!! won awards for editing, art direction and cinematography. Shahana Goswami and Arjun Rampal won Awards for the Best Supporting Actor (Female and Male), and Farhan Akhtar won Most Promising Newcomer (Male), all for Rock On!!. A Wednesday won the Ramnath Goenka Award which recognises movies that reflect the ideals of the Express Group. Asin Thottumkal won Most Promising Newcomer (Female) for Ghajini.

The Khan siblings, Sajid and Farah, hosted the evening along with Shreyas Talpade, sprinkling the announcement of the Awards with spoofs on several talked-about releases of the year, particularly Karzzz, Dostana and Fashion. Deepika Padukone lit up the evening dancing to numbers from her films Bachna Ae Haseeno and Om Shanti Om, and performances by Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra and Anushka Sharma set the night on fire.

In the VVIP section sat Aishwarya Rai and Jaya Bachchan, who came with Amar Singh, Kumar Mangalam and Neerja Birla, Rekha, Twinkle Khanna, Tusshar Kapoor and Jeetendra, Abhishek Kapoor, Tarun Mansukhani and John Abraham.

When the young man whose name was announced as winner of the best story award for A Wednesday took the stage, compere Farah Khan asked aloud, “Is that really Neeraj Pandey?” It was meant in all seriousness, something that could not be said of most of Farah and Sajid’s best lines from the glittering stage.

Few, if anyone, at the MMRDA Grounds knew what Neeraj Pandey looked like. Not even Farah, who is no ordinary compere, and the only woman director to make it big commercially.

The lean, bespectacled man, dressed inconspicuously in deep blue and black, allowed his film to do all the speaking for him. He went up on stage several times, but only offered “thanks” each time.

It was that sort of an evening.

The Nokia 15th Annual Star Screen Awards toasted a year when the strange and wonderful transitions that picked up pace in Bollywood sometime around the turn of the new century — after the multiplex revolution of the late 1990s had had time to settle down and opened up space for stories with a difference told by bold new storytellers carried on. It was the year when the big films mostly went down, with the exception of a notable few like Jodhaa Akbar, Rab Ne and Ghajini. And when the small films were the true winners.

Between themselves, Jodhaa Akbar and A Wednesday notched 14 nominations each. The first, a grand historical that tenderly told the story of a romance that transcended the barriers of religion; the second a tight and edgy thriller, small and inexpensive, one that came out of the blue and presciently framed the growing sense of helplessness of the aam aadmi in times of terror.

In 2008, a mainstream film playfully walked across the line and placed the relationship between two men squarely at its centre. At the Nokia 15th Annual Star Screen Awards this evening, Jodi of the Year award went to John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan. The fact that it was announced by Bipasha and Aishwarya did not at all take away from the newness of that freshly-minted Bollywood moment.

Last year ended in anxiety, when ten men brought terrible terror to Mumbai, spreading a fear that threatened to choke the imagination, and the global downturn dampened enthusiasm. But fittingly, as the flames went up from the stage, as Priyanka Chopra danced to a medley from Fashion and then when Arjun Rampal gathered most of the stars on stage during his act from Rock On!!, there was no time to look back at the past, except to celebrate its best moments.

WINNERS ALL

Best Actor (Male):

Hrithik Roshan (Jodhaa Akbar)

Best Actor (Female):

Priyanka Chopra (Fashion)

Best Film:

Jodhaa Akbar

Ramnath Goenka Award: