by Jaspreet Pandohar
Freelance journalist

Jai Ho! That was the triumphant sound ringing out across London’s Covent Garden on Sunday afternoon as I stepped onto the red carpet outside the Royal Opera House.

It was a song I’d literally been dancing to the evening before at one of London’s newest Bollywood club nights, it seemed almost surreal watching the likes of Hollywood A-listers Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep and Sharon Stone glide past to the rhythm of A R Rahman’s award-winning anthem.

But somehow the melodious tune didn’t seem out of place reverberating around the prestigious venue in the cold winter air. Like the Indian maestro’s legendary scores, it formed the perfect soundtrack to the Orange British Academy Film Awards. Not only the most prominent event in the British movie calendar, the glitzy occasion turned out to be a great night for Anglo-Indian relations and world cinema.

Indo-Brit flick, Slumdog Millionaire, was top dog at this year’s Baftas and rightly so. Danny Boyle’s much feted rags to riches drama about an ordinary chaiwalla who wins the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire romped home winning seven of the eleven awards it was nominated for. Bagging prizes for Best Film, Best Director (Danny Boyle) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), the feel good movie of year also won for its editing and cinematography.

Having recently earned a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for Best Original Score and Composer, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that A R Rahman would add a Bafta to his trophy collection. Accepting the first award of the night from singer Kylie Minogue, he simply uttered “Unbelievable, again..”, thanking everyone from his beloved fans and Danny Boyle to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Shekar Kapur and his agent for introducing him to the west.

Apart from Rahman, Resul Pookutty was the other Indian to win a BAFTA award for Best Sound Editing for Slumdog Millionaire. Chatting on the red carpet he said it was “great to just walk down like this, winning or losing is not important at all, it is important that we are here”.

Huddled in the press pen besides Sky News, CNN-IBN and NDTV, not even the chilly temperature and drizzle could dampen my spirits and those of my fellow journalists. Our prime position and the helpful PR girls, not to mention our Asian complexions, ensured the who’s who stopped by to say hello or at least wave in the direction of our cameras and brollies.

Daniel Craig, Robert Downey Junior and Brad Pitt may have sent the ladies hearts a flutter, but even Bond, Iron Man and Benjamin Button failed to arouse as much attention as a certain teenager from Harrow. When quizzed on his way into the ceremony Dev Patel joked about his nomination in the Best Actor category against Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke and Frank Langella. “I’m not really going to win anything, let’s be honest, but just to be nominated alongside these guys is amazing. I’m eighteen years old and these guys have been winning awards before I even contemplated being an actor so this is great.”

By the end of the night Patel’s prophecy proved true when he lost out to comeback king Rourke who won for The Wrestler. However the rising star confirmed reports of being cast in M Night Shyamalan’s supernatural martial-arts movie, The Last Airbender, with a resounding “Yes I have!” With filming due to start in Greenland next month, Patel’s mother Anita laughed that she didn’t think her son would go back to school now. Accompanied by his proud mother, father and elder sister, Patel seemed at ease with the media, even finding time to share an interview and play fight with Sharon Stone.

Patel’s 24 year-old co-star and former Indian model, Freida Pinto, also lost out in the category of the Best Supporting Actress with the gong going to senioritta Penelope Cruz. However posing in her stunning peach gown by Oscar De La Renta ensured she got maximum exposure in the tabloids and glossies thanks to the paparazzi. Joining Dev on stage to present the award for Best Costume, the pair looked just as happy dishing out the awards as having been in the line-up to receive them.

While their over excited Bollywood co-star Anil Kapoor seemed to be taking a leaf out of Best Actress winner Kate Winslet’s book by jumping with glee and shouting “India, India, India!”, the more laid back Irrfan Khan seemed content in taking in the atmosphere having experienced the Bafta buzz in 2001 for Asif Kapadia’s The Warrior. Predicting Slumdog’s chances at the forthcoming Oscars, he was positive. “I think it’s got a good chance of winning four – Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and possibly Best Adapation.”

On winning Best Director, Captain Boyle of the good ship Slumdog paid recognition to the inhabitants of the city in which the film was born. “We are hugely indebted, all of us, to the people of Mumbai, especially the actors, Anil and Irrfan and all the other actors who helped us….and also to three people in particular, Loveleen Tandon, the casting director, Raj Acharya who was the first assistant director, and Rahman who you honoured earlier, who were effectively my co-directors.”

Having already experienced a backlash by Indian media who claim he has exploited the slum kids used as actors in the film, Boyle was asked to lay rest to the latest controversy in which Indian author Vikas Swarup has allegedly said he hasn’t been invited to attend the Oscars at part of the Slumdog posse. “Vikas has been invited. I don’t know where you heard that rumour from. None of us would be anywhere without Vikas’s novel,” replied Boyle.

Slumdog’s evening concluded at the winners press conference where its sole British producer, Christian Colson, thanked BAFTA for “taking our troubled fairytale of a film so much to heart,” saying “Slumdog Millionaire was dragged kicking and screaming into the world against the advice of many, by the passion and talent and dedication of the people who made it…our amazing cast and crew realised the dream with blood and sweat and love.”

Ending the night I bump into BBC presenter and film critic Mark Kermode and ask him if Indian filmmakers needed to pull their socks up and make better films if they are to compete for international awards like the Baftas. The lack of an Indian film competitor in the foreign film category this year was only too obvious.

“It’s not a matter of being better; it’s a matter of different styles of filmmaking,” states Kermode. “Anil Kapoor has famously said that if Slumdog was to be a Bollywood film it would have had more songs, more coincidence and more extraordinary plot lines. There is a great cultural difference between what we are used to here and what the Bollywood film traditions are.”

“You know what, Hollywood is looking to Bollywood and actually Bollywood has probably got the lead on us. Give it a couple of years and I think they will be dominating the awards and the box office.”

Looking back at the night’s east-west masala, I have a sneaky feeling he could be right.

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Jaspreet Pandohar is a freelance entertainment journalist
jaspreetpandohar@yahoo.co.uk