Indo-Asian News Service

Mumbai

Ajay Devgan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan and leading ladies Preity Zinta, Urmila Matondkar and Rani Mukherjee were undoubtedly the stars of 2003. “King” Khan again proved his supremacy at the box office with two hits. If during the middle of the year he scored a hit with ‘Chalte Chalte’, at the year-end he was again king of the marquee when ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ swept the box office. Though he would undoubtedly be a pre-eminent choice for all the popular best-actor awards, it’s doubtful that Shah Rukh would finally win the coveted trophy.

Neither probably would Ajay Devgan who, with ‘Bhoot’, ‘Qayamat’, ‘Zameen’ and ‘GangaaJal’, was undoubtedly the most successful star of 2003.

And yet, in none of his four hits did Devgan make the impact of Hrithik Roshan in ‘Koi... Mil Gaya’. With that one performance as a mentally challenged child, Hrithik not only reaffirmed his star status but also swept aside all competition for the year. Hrithik has already won four awards for his performance in ‘Koi... Mil Gaya’.

By March he will probably sweep every best actor award, not because Shah Rukh or Ajay were not good, but because Hrithik was far better.

No other leading man made an impact even remotely comparable with these three. Salman Khan would probably get into the nomination lists for his performance in ‘Tere Naam’. But his chances of a victory are nearly nil.

Among the actresses, it’s not a hands-down win situation for Preity. Though it must be admitted that this diligent actress chooses her roles with intelligence. The results are there for everyone to see. Preity features in the two biggest successes of 2003.

In both ‘Koi... Mil Gaya’ and ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ she created space for herself in spite of her co-stars getting the author-backed parts.

Preity will, however, have Urmila Matondkar to contend with.

In terms of the ground covered, 2003 was as much Urmila’s year as Ajay Devgan’s. She’ll be nominated for either ‘Bhoot’ or ‘Pinjar’ (more likely the former since the latter wasn’t commercially successful).

Urmila and Shah Rukh could quite possibly walk away with the critics’ awards for ‘Pinjar’/ ‘Bhoot’ and ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ respectively while Preity and Hrithik could take the popular counterparts.

But there’s no way Urmila can be ignored this year.

Or Saif Ali Khan, that complementary actor who makes supporting roles look like leads. He’s a sure-shot winner for most supporting/ parallel-actor categories for ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’.

And, yes, most of the popular awards would find some way of honouring Amitabh Bachchan for his sterling age-defying heroism in ‘Baghban’.

Most awards would be unevenly divided among ‘Koi... Mil Gaya’, ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ and ‘Baghban’.

But the dark and dreaded horse ‘LOC’ could topple the entire apple cart.

As far as the popular and Indian national awards are concerned, ‘LOC’ could well prove to be the waterloo for ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ and ‘Koi... Mil Gaya’.

Paresh Rawal is a sure-shot winner in the comic compartment for ‘Hungama’ or ‘Fun2shhh’.

Music nominees are likely to be Himesh Reshammiya (‘Tere Naam’), Aadesh Shrivastava (‘Baghban’), Shankar-Ehsan-Loy (‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’), Rajesh Roshan (‘Koi... Mil Gaya’) and Anu Malik (‘LOC’), with the scales tilting towards ‘LOC’.

Javed Akhtar and Sameer would be the obvious choices in the lyrics’ department for ‘LOC’ and ‘Baghban’.

One doesn’t need to be a soothsayer to predict the winner of the best newcomer awards. In a year saturated with disappointing new faces, Shahid Kapoor in ‘Ishq Vishq’ and Lara Dutta/ Priyanka Chopra in ‘Andaaz’ are miles ahead of the pack.

From the picture that emerges from the year, there will be no single film sweeping the awards like ‘Devdas’ last year, except perhaps ‘LOC’.