A Hectic day on the 23rd of June

 IIFA is getting bigger and better with each passing day as Bollywood stars are crowding up at the three downtown hotels- Renaissance, Royal York & Roy Thomson. Work began for us at 1.30 in the afternoon today when we sat down with our small load of 175 VIP & V.VIP passes at the site office.

There are two categories that needed to be demarcated today- 100 V.VIP passes and 75 VIP ones. Now, as promised, here I am going to give you a glimpse of some of the celebrities who will be there for the event:

Amisha                                                    The Deols

                                    The Kapoors off course---

Vivek Oberoi      

&  

Arbaaz- Malaika
                     to name a few...

& Mr. Anupam Kher will be hosting the show...

Now, the latest news is that Sohail Khan, Fardeen, R Madhavan, Shankar Mahadevan, Ranveer singh and a whole lot of other Tinsel-towners have already arrived downtown...here are some I met today:

Omi Vaidya, better known as Chatur Ramalingam turned out to be a really chilled out guy...not only did he pose with me but also nodded in approval of my suggestion: "don't get typecasted"

Next to come up the stairs was Kiran Juneja... she is a well established television actress who has acted in tons of Bollywood movies in supporting roles like Badmaash Company, Chandni Chowk to China, Bunty aur Babli, Krrish, Jab We Met, Fashion and so on...She is also the wife of Ramesh Sippy who you have met in my previous blog.

Aashish Chaudhary was up next. And although he is not that popular, he's made his mark in movies like Fight Club, Girl Friend, Dhamaal, Double Dhamaal, Bhootnath and so on.

& Right before leaving I stopped by a crowded elevator, just to find the director of one of my most favorite movies- Rang De Basanti...yes, this is Mr. Rakesh omprakash Mehra...I am so waiting for another film by him!!

That's all for today folks..Let me just tell you one more thing- we have received our IDs and t-shirts too today..so if anyone's left to pick them up, find them at the Media room, with the volunteer management team.

Will soon be coming up with more at Joyee Nation!!!

Red Carpet Affair at Royal York on the 22nd of June

Well, this has been my most busy day this year. I had set out of home at 9.45 am in the morning, thinking I would be back in three hours at max...and here I am, back at 8.30, tired to the core!

The IIFA event is finally shaping up with the stars all about and around, all team heads finally arrived and every thing perfecting in an organized and orderly chaos.

Earlier this morning, at around 8.45 I received two emails- 1) I have to pick up my complimentary "green carpet" tickets from the Renaissance hotel; 2) Got to reach Royal York at 11am for our team meeting and event briefing. So I rushed out at around 9.45, took a cab and reached Renaissance in about 15 mins, only to find the serpentine cue already twisting and turning through the hotel lobby. Here's how it looked like:-

 

But the wait was not a long one, as Saniya managed to give out the passes pretty quickly and I made it to Royal York much before 11.

We also got this glimpse of how the stage would look like on the award day...

At Royal York, I met my department head for the first time today....here is the crew from Wizcraft, that is going to be doing the RK Retrospective with us----

& this is our little workstation inside Royal York- in the territories room:

 

 Guess who else was there with us----??

Yes....Ruslaan Mumtaz, the male lead of Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar (MP3) & Vivan Bhatena- who portrayed the role of the vice captain of the India national cricket team, Abimanyu Singh, in the 2007 hit film, Chak De India-----

 

Royal York witnessed a real Red Carpet affair today.... check out all the twinkling stars I met---

This is Ramesh Sippy, an Indian film director, probably best-known for directing the popular and critically acclaimed film Sholay, Saagar and Shaan.

Yes, none other than Zayed Khan and Diya Mirza....Zayed was looking cool in his tux and Diya was such a pretty doll!! But unfortunately the security was too tight and a single picture with either became impossible :(

The pretty pink lady!!

That's Zayed's body guard!! :x

But look who's here now... Yes our very own Boman Irani....he was the sweetest of them all and gave us all a chance to click a single with him :)

  

Kangna Ranaut too has arrived today but unfortunately was escorted very secretively through the backdoor to her room...so none but a very few lucky security personnel got to see her...so, see you later Kangna!!

The press and paparazzi were there too---

Now for the Retrospective...

We were taken to the TIFF Bell Lightbox building at around 4 pm. I am in-charge of getting the script ready for Mr. Anupam Kher, who is going to host the show there. Appearing for the interview are the three brothers: Rishi, Rajeev and Randhir. Srm. Krishna Raj Kapoor (wife of lt. Raj Kapoor) and Ritu Nanda(daughter) are also going to be present. And with them will be our honorable Premier. There is also another very interesting interview that is going to take place here...any guesses? Of course it is Ranveer Kapoor. Yes, he is also expected to be here but I am not telling you whether Kareena and/or Karisma are going to be here yet...lets keep that a surprise for now :)

Here is how Bell Lightbox is looking like right now---

Left- A portrait of Raj Kapoor & Nargis


Bottom- A photo Booth

Posters and collector's items from the Raj Kapoor movies adorn the walls of Bell Lightbox

& this is Cinema 3, where the event will take place:

That's it for now... Tomorrow I will be able to give you a comprehensive list of the guests attending the event & the flow of the event... I hope you have enjoyed reading through this blog... 

I will see you soon in Joyee Nation :)

IIFA BRIEFING

The IIFA week finally kicked off after much wait on the 19th of June, 2011 and here's how the day went:

The volunteers congregated at the Fairmont Royal York hotel's concert hall at around 10 in the morning. Out of the 800 odd applicants 334 have been chosen to be 'Friends of IIFA' this year and the congregation today represented nearly half of it. The other half was assigned team leads and departments on Friday, the 17th of June.
I reached the  lobby at about 9.45 am and the wait to be seated at the presentation arena was definitely long. The first thing we were required to do was get hold of a consent form from inside the hall. Three of IIFA's management members were present inside (registration desk), giving these forms out. On it were spaces provided to fill in our names and addresses and the rules of conduct as a IIFA team member.

 After waiting for an hour, at around 10.04 we started entering the concert hall. The first tick off on the to do list was to hand over the forms at the registration desk. We then tailgated each other to the inner sanctum, where the briefing started in a moment's time and addressing us were members of IIFA's core team. A slide show followed and we were taken on a journey of IIFA's last eleven glorious years. IIFA began in 2000 and the first ceremony was held in London at The Millennium Dome. Thereafter, each year the event has been hosted in different countries worldwide, and the chief consideration that the  organizers keep in mind while selecting the host country is the density of South Asian population residing in it. Given below is a list of 'where and when' of IIFA Awards:

Year	City	Country
2000	London	United Kingdom
2001	Sun City	South Africa
2002	Genting Highlands	Malaysia
2003	Johannesburg	South Africa
2004	Singapore	Republic of Singapore
2005	Amsterdam	The Netherlands
2006	Dubai	United Arab Emirates
2007	Yorkshire	United Kingdom
2008	Bangkok	Thailand
2009	Macau	Macau
2010	Colombo	Sri Lanka
2011	Toronto	Canada

Following this information session, the next speaker Priyank, presented us with a slide show of Macau backstage activities of IIFA, to demonstrate how the volunteers are expected to function; what emerged, was a picture of fun and extravaganza. He also told us about his experience as a "friend of IIFA" at Macau. Yes, he too had started his career as a volunteer like us and later joined Wizcraft out of his love for the magic of the world of entertainment and media.

      Here he is---

& there we are---

Now, for the real deal--- who does what!!

The IIFA management has identified different departments with respective heads, for instance:

 

Every department has a team leader and a band of volunteers are assigned to this lead. The team lead reports to the head of the department and the volunteers report to the team lead. Now that's easy to understand...isn't it? :)

Here is where I come in. I am in-charge of a 6 member team (excluding me) which is assisting in an after IIFA event called "RK Retrospective". 

 This is my lovely team: Right from me- Megha, Hena & Shraddha; Left from me- Nav, Isha & Ilaha.

 The RK Retrospective pays tribute to Sri Raj Kapoor, the Indian Film legend by showcasing a number of his most celebrated films like Mera Naam Joker, Sri Charso Bees, and so on. Well, at first I really thought that it was a bummer- as we would not be working at the event venue- Rogers Stadium; but later I realized that its actually going to be a pretty nice experience because the Retrospective is an 'entry by invitation' event where a very exclusive gathering is going to be received on the 26th evening. The entire Kapoor family (all three generations) is going to be there as also many other twinkling stars of the Bollywood galaxy! So at the moment I am all excited and anxious to get going...my team is expected at the Tiff Bell Lightbox on 22nd June and we are going to be given our IIFA T-shirts and IDs on the same day. 

More updates will be following shortly, till then...see you soon in Joyee Nation!