by Subhash K Jha

In its effort to deviate from the expected, and to avoid the inevitable Black sweep the Zee Cine Awards, held at Mauritius on Saturday afternoon, gave away all the three Critics' awards to Nagesh Kukunoor's Iqbal.

Once again Madhur Bhandarkar's original and striking Page 3 was completely ignored. After its near-obliteration in the Filmfare awards nominations Bhandarkar didn't even bother to attend the Zee awards.

Not that he was missed. The star attendance in Mauritius, in spite of a flash hurricane , was impressive. The organizers got dazzling live performances out of Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar (who descended on stage from above the audience) and Rani Mukherjee who had to make do with Arjun Rampal instead of Abhishek Bachchan in the Chup chup ke item from Bunty Aur Babli.

Choreographer Ganesh Hegde sportingly served as a last-minute proxy for Abhishek in the Bluff Master and Bunty Aur Babli performances.

But the Bachchans' absence was palpable on that hot sultry Mauritiun afternoon as Black once again proved itself the most beautiful.

Best Film/Director winner Sanjay Leela Bhansali joined hands with Rani Mukherjee to collect the best-actor award on behalf of Amitabh Bachchan.

Life-time Achievement Award winner Rekha turned her honour into a laugh-time achievement when she performed a jig with Shah Rukh Khan on stage to the sound of Salaam-e-ishq. The other lifetime-achievement award winner Rishi Kapoor was more dignified in accepting his award.

But the highlight of the afternoon, a richly-deserved tribute to the cinema of Yash Chopra by Shah Rukh Khan, came much too late in the show, after all the awards were over. By then the audience was hot hungry and in no mood to remain attentive.

There were no real surprises among the winners. ...Unless we count Himesh Reshammiya's second award for playback singing in a week as a surprise. Unlike the Filmfare awards which Himesh did not attend he not only attended the Zee jamboree but also gave a defiant speech.

Shweta Prasad (critics' award for Iqbal ) and Ayesha Kapoor(best supporting actress for Black) were the youngest winners of the evening while Pradeep Sarkar who won the award for best debutant director (Parineeta) was self-mocking about his over-the-hill position for a first-timer's award.

Shiny Ahuja and Vidya Balan surprised no one by winning the debutante's awards, though the inclusion of Konkona Sen-Sharma in the newcomers' package was strange considering she had done three films prior to Page 3.

Maybe they just wanted to be kind to the tragically neglected Bhandarkar film.