Banned Pakistani artists qualify for a ‘Filmfare’ award, but not Akshay Kumar!

After the announcement of the 62nd Filmfare awards nominations, social media is still debating why, despite having several hits in his kitty, actor Akshay Kumar and his films failed to get a single nomination.

Introduced in the year 1954, Filmfare awards are one the India’s oldest movie awards given for artistic excellence in Hindi cinema. The 62nd Filmfare award is scheduled for this Saturday.

It is worth a mention that Akhshay Kumar was the most successful actor of the bygone year in the Bollywood.

‘Airlift’, ‘Rustom’, ‘Housefull 3’, 'Kapoor and Sons', ‘Sultan, M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story’, 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil', 'Shivaay' and ‘Dangal’ made it to the coveted 100 crore club, of which the first three belong to Khiladi Kumar.  

All lead actors of these successful movies are nominated for the best actor category - the only exception the jury made was Akshay Kumar.

Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Shahid Kapoor and Sushant Singh Rajput have been nominated for best actor award this year.

This was, however, not the first time when luck did not favour the superstar known for his action-packed roles and Khiladi series of movies.

Akshay, who does not wait for extended weekends or big festivals to release a movie, has not received a single award in his career spanning almost three decades. The saving grace was a Padma Shri, which was awarded to him in the year 2009.  

If you take a look at the films Akshay has dished out over the years, one clearly observes an upward trajectory, with many of his films managing to get critical acclaim along with good box-office collections in the past few years.

Six of his movies have made it to the prestigious 100 cr club, at par with Shah Rukh Khan in his entire career. The only star who has given more number of 100 cr movies is superstar Salman Khan with 10 flicks to his credit. 

Taking up different and challenging roles in almost every genre of films, Akshay, time and again, has proved that he is no less than his contemporaries. In his career spanning 30 years, Khiladi Kumar has managed to successfully nail almost all the genres of movie making including action, comedy, drama and characters including negative shades based on sheer talent. 

Recently, when the actor shared the couch with wife Twinkle Khanna on the chat show Koffee with Karan, he lamented that his wife, daughter of famous Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia, made fun of him for not winning a single award in his career.

“She says that both my mom and dad win awards and you have failed to bring a trophy at home,” Kumar told Karan Johar. 

What makes Akshay’s case even more tragic for fans is that ironically, artists from the hostile neighbouring Pakistan are also nominated for the awards to be hosted by Karan Johar and SRK. While drawing comparisons (with Pakistan) does tend to get the artistic community all worked up, one does find it difficult to digest that Pakistani artists, who are banned in our country, will be in the race for the Filmfare, but not Akshay.

Fawad Khan, Atif Aslam, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Qurat-ul-Ain Balouch have all been nominated for the coveted award this year.

While Fawad is nominated for ‘Kapoor & Sons’ and Rahat for 'Jag Ghoomeya' from ‘Sultan’, this is the first nomination of Qurat-ul-Ain Balouch for her song 'Kari Kari' in Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘Pink’.

Atif received the nomination for his song 'Tere Sang Yara' from ‘Rustom’ but Akshay remained untouched in the process.

It may be recalled that film industry association has put a ban on the artist of the neighbouring country after the infamous Uri attacks from Pakistani based terrorist groups. Karna Johar’s movie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil faced the ire of politicians and cinema hall associations over the presence of Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in the movie.

Not many successful actor and actress, however, believe in these awards. 

In the past, many wonderful and critically acclaimed actors have questioned the authenticity of these award shows.

Actress Kangana Ranaut who kept herself away from award shows had also said that she didn’t believe in such awards.

Superstar Aamir Khan has also chosen to stay away from such shows for similar reasons.

In the end though, movie buffs have been left disappointed with Filmfare. Unsurprisingly, the awards show has come under severe flak from fans on social networking sites with ‘Filmfare On Sale’ trending.

The actor though has chosen to maintain a stoic silence.