Does one feel that the film has served the purpose because a few individuals like the Print & Television critics say it is good or is how many tickets audience bought?
Without batting an eyelid even the most award savvy Director would say that it is the audience buying tickets which is important because it will at the end of the day it will be his primary objective to see that as many people as possible watches his work.
In the year Satya released "Godmother" got the National Award and Satya was completely ignored.
Godmother ran for 2 weeks and Satya ran for 25 weeks in the same theatre and 10 year later Satya is remembered as a cult-film and the jury members of the National Award committee would have forgotten both Godmother and its Director; and worse they would not have been even bothered to follow that Director's career.
I always knew that it is the audiences not the critic's reviews which made Satya work so tremendous. They gave as much or better reviews for Maqbool, Khamosh Pani, etc and we all know their box-office fate.
Khalid Mohammed mentioned in his review when Raat released that time, that it is an unintended comedy. Apart from him most reviews to trashed it.
15 years later many critics of present times term it as a cult-classic. That's not because Raat was ahead of times but the critics of today were just audience at that time and hence unbiased.
Anyway to cut a long story short, not to undermine the other films or its makers who received raving reviews compared to "Phoonk" I just would like them to answer sincerely from thier hearts whether they would have preferred the critic's reviews and opinions of their films or the collections of "Phoonk".