Swept away by stars' goodwill wave

The six-hour telethon, HELP, organised on February 6 by the Hindi film industry for tsunami survivors turned out to be a star-studded show of the first order. Stars participated in the function at the MMRDA grounds without thought of profit. Rs25 million (Dh2 million) has already been pledged.

The funds were raised innovatively by auctioning dates for breakfast or dinner with Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan and other stars. The proceeds from the concert will go to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund

Kabir Bedi and Sonali, anchors for the evening, called out the stars to ask the audience to donate generously for the tsunami survivors. Rani Mukherjee, Hema Malini, Celina Jaitley, Vivek Oberoi, Suresh Oberoi, Rekha, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, Ramesh Sippy, Kiran Sippy and Jaya Bachchan obliged promptly.

Others present included Dilip Kumar, Saira Banu, Sharmila Tagore, Sunil Dutt, Jaipal Reddy, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, and Vilasrao Deshmukh, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, who sat patiently through the whole show till it wound up at 1am.

If Aishwarya Rai, dressed in a green shimmering sari, stole the thunder with her dance number Dola Re Dola from Devdas, the father-son duo of Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan literally brought the roof down with their dance number in tandem with the sexy Mallika Sherawat to the fusion song including One Love ( Rakth) and Rang Barse ( Silsila), specially recorded at Subhash Ghai's recording studio for the occasion.

And then came Shahrukh Khan. The King Khan strutted on stage with Shilpa Shetty, Malaika Arora Khan and Priyanka Chopra to the number Tumse Milke from Main Hoon Na. With Akshay Kumar's new resolve of having nothing to do with Priyanka Chopra in public thanks to worried wife Twinkle's order, we saw him gyrating to the seductive Gela Gela number from Aetraaz with Ayesha Takia. Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta stole the show with Mahi Ve from Kal Ho Na Ho. Kareena Kapoor made the audience swing to her dance number Rang De Dupatta Mera from the film Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai. Fardeen Khan and Ameesha danced to Maine Jisko Chaha.

Sajid Khan made the audience roar with laughter with his razor-sharp witty jokes. Sample these: There was a discount sale in a garment shop. While Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee got 50 per cent off; Mallika Sherawat got a massive 95 per cent off.

There was more: When Chunky Pande was shooting, he took time off to go on a shopping spree. He removed his wallet and splurged around Rs300 ,000 (Dh25,424) on shopping. Which is a bigger lie? Answer: Chunky Pande was shooting.

Among the singers, Alka Yagnik sang Keh Do Na You Are My Sonia from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Udit belted out Yeh Tara Woh Tara from Swades , Sukhwinder sang the title number of Kisna. Abhijeet sang Tauba from Chalte Chalte. Adnan Sami belted out his favourite Kabhi To Nazar Milao. And Sonu Nigam sang an international number.

From across the border in Pakistan, both Meera and Moammar Rana were present to regale the audience with their dance number. Aftab Shivdasani and Ritesh Deshmukh swung to their Masti song.

The highlight of the evening was Salman Khan dancing to Kuch Ho Gaya penned by ad-man Prasoon Joshi and specially composed for the occasion by Anu Malik and sung by 10 top playback singers.

The only glitch about the Telethon, a joint effort of the Film and Television Producers' Guild, 15 major TV channels and three event management companies and initiated by Sanjay Dutt, was the axing of the entire TV stars segment from the show at the behest of Star TV.

The group did not want Sony TV to get mileage for its serials Jassi Jaisi Koyi Nahin and Kkusum since Mona Singh ( Jassi) and Abhay ( Anuj Saxena) were scheduled to perform.

The irony was that Star, Sony, Doordarshan, TV Today, NDTV, MTV, Sab TV, V Channel, Geo, Ary, Hungama, Nickolodeon, Zoom, CNBC etc worked with each other to create one channel, one Voice for the concert.

The concert, which was the first of its kind, will be simultaneously telecast across multiple news and entertainment channels on February 12 from 4.30pm onwards. So stay glued to your sets on Sunday.