Toranto,June 27 :The Bollywood- crazy crowd snubs two- time Oscar winner Swank as it chants King Khan’s name
TWO- TIME Oscar winner Hilary Swank would surely want to forget her maiden brush with Bollywood in a hurry. On Saturday evening at Toronto’s sprawling Roger’s Center, Swank, Academy Award winner for her roles in Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, sashayed in on the green carpet of the IIFA Awards 2011.
A crowd of around 22,000 onlookers, mostly NRIs settled in the city, were more occupied chanting the name of Shah Rukh Khan. Swank, normally accorded a queen’s reception on the Oscar red carpet, held her poise and barely managed to hold her grin as she quickly completed her carpet trot. The delirious bunch on the two sides of the green carpet were more interested in cheering for Anil Kapoor or Fardeen Khan — even Satish Kaushik, Gulshan Grover and newbie Amrita Puri.
While Swank might perhaps have later exchanged tips on the strange phenomenon called Bollywood obsession with another Oscar winner, Cuba Gooding Jr — the other Hollywood star on the IIFA 2011 green carpet who also failed to create much flutter — she must have been awestruck by the zeal of the 22,000- odd expat Indians who had converged from all over Canada.
MANY of them turned up in Indian attire with lots of bling and all of them stood patiently on the road to gain entry into the venue, all the time screaming as stars, big and small, stepped out of hired stretch limos onto the green carpet. Some of these fans had booked tickets for the show in January.
A few had paid twice the regular price of $150 per ticket for the show.
The irony struck you when you realised most of these NRI fans didn’t even know the names of many of the stars they cried for.
For instance, Mahie Gill got a thundering reception as she got out of her car, but then, on being asked by a set of fans, she had to introduce herself.
“I am Mahie Gill and I worked in Dev.D,” she was heard telling a bunch.
Then there were the types — Malaika Arora and hubby Arbaaz Khan, for instance — who were recognised but the crowd wasn’t interested in them.
When Malaika and Arbaaz stepped onto the stage to collect the Best Film trophy for Dabangg — they are officially the producers of the Salman Khan film — a girl in the crowd shrieked:
“Arbaaz, I love your brother!” Another such case was Vivek Oberoi, accompanied by wife Priyanka and father Suresh Oberoi. He got a royal ignore from the media at the green carpet and saw an equally cold response on stage despite screaming, “Hello Toronto, I love you too.”
The biggest hit on the green carpet was expectedly Shah Rukh Khan. He was swamped by PYTs as he entered the venue gate.
Many of them showered him with kisses and SRK, the true showman that he is, ensured the lipstick marks remained on his cheek.
“I don’t plan to rub off these lipstick marks as of now,” he told the press.
Everyone tried to promote something or the other on the green carpet.
Shilpa Shetty, and hubby Raj Kundra in tow, specially stopped in front of a UKbased news anchor to declare “Marriage is wonderful for me”.
Even the normally reticent Deol brothers — Sunny and Bobby — used green carpet footage to talk about their forthcoming projects.
Esha Deol’s intricately designed silver blouse by Manav Gangwani and her Gayatri Mantra tattoo were a hit among the shutterbugs.