by Subhash K Jha

It was a very special night for Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Their collaborative classic Black walked away with all the major awards including best picture, director, best editing, best actor (Bachchan) and best actress (Mukherjee).

Exultant and tired Sanjay Bhansali was specially happy that Black had walked away with all the critics and popular awards.

"It's very rare for a film to do that," he said. "I never expected us to get the Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Film awards in both sections. That makes these awards a special triumph," says the extraordinary filmmaker who has swept the Filmfare awards with each of his four films so far.

There were many special moments at the Filmfare awards on Saturday night. The most special of them all was the first public appearance of Amitabh Bachchan after his long illness.

Though he didn't sit among the audience he appeared on stage thrice to collect his two awards for best actor(critics' and popular) and to give Yash Chopra the 'Power' award.

Rani who got the best-actress award from Will Smith gave the lifetime achievement award to Shabana Azmi, who's no stranger to awards.

All the nominees paled into near-insignificance under the formidable influence of Black power at the function. Black swept all the major awards(including first timers Bela Sehgal and Ayesha Kapoor for best editing and best supporting actress, respectively) . In comparison the other nominations walked away with paltry recognition.

Vidya Balan won herself two awards, including the Best Debut for Parineeta. The poet-extraordinaire Gulzar won the best lyric award for the popular Kajra re in Bunty Aur Babli . The song won Alisha Chinai the best female vocalist award.

Later Aishwarya Rai brought the house down when she danced to remix version of Kajra re. Abhishek Bachchan grooved to a medley of his songs while Madhuri Dixit who had flown down specially from the US for her performance danced to her songs in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas. Unfortunately the director couldn't meet up with Madhuri.

Conspicuous absentees were Akshay Kumar and Nana Patekar who won for best actor in a comic role and best actor in a villainous role, respectively, for Garam Masala and Apaharan.

Akshay was in Delhi during the awards while Patekar was shooting in Dubai.

Father and son Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan won awards in the best actor and best supporting actor categories. A high point in the evening was the moment when Abhishek caught hold of his father and hugged him spontaneously.

The audience didn't lag far behind. It gave the senior Bachchan a standing ovation.