Vyjayanthimala shields Raveena Tandon’s National Award for “Daman”
When actress Raveena Tandon was honoured with the National Award for Best Actress in the late noticeably-missed Kalpana Lajmi’s Daman in the year 2001 and she walked away with it, ironically, some members of the jury claimed that Raveena got the award because her maternal uncle actor McMohan (Samba in Sholay) happened to be on the jury.
However this didn’t go down well with the yesteryear legendary danseuse-actress Vyjayanthimala who headed the jury that year. She defended the award saying that she remembered the incident vividly. Much was spoken on Raveena winning the award. But isn’t that the norm? Each year someone or the other or some organization has an objection.
Infact, Raveena played a victim of domestic violence in Daman. Many women in our country silently suffer this and it was
estimable that Raveen brought it out in the open with such sensitivity.
Even Firebrand Kalpana Lajmi had also defended Raveena’s National Award, going as far to
blazon that Raveena in Daman gave a much better performance than Shabana Azmi in Lajmi’s Ek Pal. This was a bit excessive. But the director made her point.
En passan, the National Award for Best Actor in 2001 went to Anil Kapoor in Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Pukar in which Madhuri Dixit gave her career-best performance.
This was a bit like honouring Raj Kumar instead of Nargis for Mother India.She deserved national award.
News input KV Raman
