Guild's Help! Telethon Concert - A Resounding Success
On Sunday, February 6, 2005 the who's who of the film and television industry joined hands to raise funds for a noble cause of rehabilitating thousands of tsunami victims. All the major news networks with the likes of Doordarshan News, Star News, Aaj Tak, Zee News were involved in the simultaneous live telecast of the Telethon at a specially constructed studio at the venue, MMRDA Grounds, Bandra Kurla Complex.
The Telethon saw the celebrities making a passionate plea to the viewers, ranging from the common man to the high profile corporates, to donate money for the cause. Viewers could donate via -
- The online auction of film based items on baazee.com
- By cheque/DD favouring 'Prime Minister's National Relief Fund-A/c Help' and dropping off the same at various private and nationalized banks like HDFC, ICICI, Standard Chartered,
- By sending the message 'DONATE' to 4646 - the charge for such SMS being Rs.10.
The Concert which happened concurrently at the venue, was simultaneously telecast across most of the satellite entertainment networks namely Doordarshan, Star TV, Sony Entertainment TV, Zee TV, SAB TV and Zoom virtually creating a road block, from 7.00 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the 12th February, 2005, an unparalleled event in the history of the electronic media.
The commercial time for the event across all TV Channels was presented to advertisers and corporates as a consolidated bouquet with Star TV being the leader of this humungous effort.
The concert, a joint initiative of the Film & Television Producers Guild of India Ltd., leading event management companies Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., Cineyug Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and G.S. Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. kicked off with a somber speech by the Guild President Shri Amit Khanna.
Practically all the stars from the glamour world participated in this event - Sanjay Dutt turned a Musafir with Koena Mitra, Akshay Kumar pranced with upcoming star Ayesha Takia, Fardeen Khan had Amisha Patel for company doing a vivacious dance number, Aftab Shivdasani and Ritesh Deshmukh reliving the fun of Masti, 'Paro' Aishwarya Rai had the audience on its feet with Dola re Dola from Devdas, Kareena Kapoor and Sameera Reddy were outstanding in their individual dance acts, Zayed Khan, John Abraham and Dino Morea kept the youth brigade flying high, Adnan Sami, Sonu Nigam, Abhijeet , Udit Narayan, Sukhwinder Singh and Alka Yagnik dazzled the audience with their vocals, Vivek Oberoi recounted his touching experiences with the tsunami victims while assisting in the relief work at Tamil Nadu, not to forget the talented due of Meera and Mommar from Pakistan.
However, the highlight of the evening was the superb act of the father son duo - megastar Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan. Shri Sajid Khan enthralled the audience with his sense of humour, Siddharth Kannan did the voice over while Kabir Bedi and Sonali Bendre hosted the concert.
A host of dignitaries including Information and Broadcasting Minister Shri Jaipal Reddy, Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Shri Sunil Dutt, Chief Minister Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh graced the occasion with their August presence. The presence of senior stars and directors like Dilip Kumar, Yash Chopra, Sharmila Tagore, Hema Malini, Ramesh Sippy added an element of nostalgia to the evening.
In conclusion, the Help! Telethon Concert was a testimony of the Indian film industry's endeavor to make a lion hearted contribution to the monumental efforts being initiated across the globe to reorganize and restructure the lives of the Tsunami stricken population. It was a proclamation to the entire world that whenever there will be any crisis of such magnitude, the film fraternity will always rise to the occasion and answer the call of the moment.
