It's awards time in India. As well as abroad, what with Amitabh Bachchan having started, as brand ambassador, the International Indian Film Awards (IIFA), complete with all the razzmatazz offered in the awards functions in India by Filmfare, Screen, Zee, and the rest.

Much as Bachchan hates the word 'Bollywood', it is this very word that is most pervasive all over Britain, which of late has been taken over by the cinema of the country it quit in 1947!

Despite the double paradox, Bachchan knows what is best for Bolly, of if he insists, Indian cinema.

So, this year's IIFA ceremony will be held in Sheffield in northern England on June 9. Bachchan strongly feels that hosting Bollywood's "biggest awards ceremony" held in Britain would really shoot up the popularity quotient of India's prolific film production.

This year's International Indian Film Awards (IIFA) ceremony will be held in Sheffield in northern England on June 9.

Bachchan has called Yorkshire "beautiful" with "a very large Asian community,'' and feels sure that such events always manage "to propagate the coming together of different communities.''

The annual film awards, again often referred to as ``Bollywood's Oscars,'' which would hardly gladden Bachchan's heart, were created some seven years ago. They are always presented outside India to promote Indian films for an international audience. Earlier ceremonies have been held in the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, the Netherlands, London and Singapore.

Bachchan has been spellbound by people abroad who don't even speak Hindi coming up to him and chatting about Indian movies. ``I've had non-Asians who don't even know our language coming up to me and saying they like a particular movie of mine,'' he has been quoted as having said elsewhere.

He added that some of them don't even know his name, let alone the fact that he is the Millennium's Megastar, but they all seem to be familiar with the characters he has played. - (SAMPURN)