GIFA Awards in Dubai 25Jan-28Jan 2005

Sunil Shetty was in London December/January and we met many times to proceed with business plans and had many a salads together I needed to have salads and he was just being nice by not eating exotic foods.

That’s Sunil Shetty the man who is a true friend, a generous soul, an incredible artist and a shrewd business man but above all YAROON KAA YAAR(a friend of friends)in between various business meetings he invited me to Dubai at the GIFA awards as his guest. I felt honoured and privileged and there is no way I would not turn up there Sunil’s invitation and all these Bollywood stars………….I have to be there and there I was in full swing.

I thought whilst I am there with all these talented people why not set up a few business meetings too……..so I did it was hard work but it was fun too crème de la crème of Bollywood was at the Emirates Tower hotel and there was lot of business to be had and we did.

I arrived in Dubai’s new exciting airport on board British Airways flight from London it was such wonderful experience that we did not even realised how quickly the time literarily flew…………we were met at the Airport by GIFA representatives who ushered us to the waiting limo outside and it raced towards the hotel as though the whole world was waiting for our arrival it was a wonderful experience ,upon arrival at the hotel when the limo doors opened the camera flashes would not stop and I kept looking around to see where the stars were who’s pictures were being taking but at last I realised they were taking our pictures and I felt exhilaration and experienced the WOW phenomenon(all courtesy of Sunil Shetty and his wonderful team).

Sunil Shetty

As we were checking in at the reception Sunil Shetty strolled across and gave us welcome hugs and made sure everything was ok and we had nice suites in the hotel and than he suggested that we take a little break and freshen up and than come down for breakfast so we did a quick shower in this beautiful suite I was given and than came down for breakfast with the stars as we were walking down ever young Mr Prem Chopra was walking in front of us with his graceful wife and we exchanged courtesies and walked on at every step there was a star shining and I really mean it there was Shakti followed by Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor ,whilst talking to Shakti Kareena who was standing just behind us called out Shahid who was few steps north of me but faster than him I turned around and than burst out laughing when Kareena turned to the other Shahid and not me………oh well its her loss………………………………..wouldn’t you agree?????

Little bit on the left was bollywood’s own Bad man and my very very old friend Gulshan Grover chatting up some rather gorgeous beauties as he always does and as soon as he saw me he left them and came towards me with a big hug and saying how good it was to see me ,he is always very welcoming as we were chatting Sanjay Gudvi and Konal Dass came and joined our conversation and at the same time my best friend the one and only gorgeous and stunningly beautiful Shabina Khan turned up(Shabina dresses up most of the bollywood’s stars extremely talented and very down to Earth Shabina always comes through for me.

It was such a pleasure and a delight to see her that I forgot everybody else and walked away with her to the breakfast table where everyone joined us and we had more gossip to eat than the food but food was so nice.

Everyone was discussing how impressive the set up was and how Sunil Shetty and Jordy Patel(CEO of Popcorn India)have organised such a large event so beautifully.

Every little detail was taken care of for us by Popcorn. there were so many high profile guests that it seemed like an impossible task to deliver such excellent service to every single one of them but they did deliver it to the highest standards.

After breakfast we all strolled to the lobby even more of socializing was going on here I almost ran over CIRCUIT from Munna bhai MBBS and than we all had a good laugh he said I was not looking down that’s why I treaded on me he is just brilliant we made good friends in the process of 2 days and I will tell you more about him in another interview.

We eventually found a table and sat down to have a drink and I saw this ravishing looking girl just walking past us and it was Shabo from Veer Zaara I could not resist it and called out oh meri shabo…………..oh you should have seen the faces in the lobby everyone looked up so did Shabo and than she slowly walked up to me in the same mannerism said loudly SAAB JI and again everyone looked up and laughed and I thought I have eventually met my match so I asked Shabo to join us for a coffee and she did I was so excited because like many millions of people the role of Shabo was played by Divya Dutta was just the best, we had long chats in the process of the next couple of days and I will write on this later.

Shabo just loved her SAAB JI(SRK)and loved working with him she said SRK made her feel so comfortable that she forgot she was acting and about the scene where she says goodbye to him at the bus station she said had she had real tears in her eyes………………………………

While I was making friends with Shabo the sex supremo Saif Ali Khan came along with his girl friend Rosa and shouted to Shabo to watch out talking to me as I was a smoothie and I said to her he was only jealous of me again we all had a good laugh, Saif said we shall meet later and talk and I said of course …….and we met many times.

Omi Puri trotted along as the coffee arrived ….what a nice man and so down to earth everyone stood up to greet him and I introduced myself too.

By now we were joined by Masoomi(new and up coming actress) and her Sister Shauna the very talented Director of many up coming movies we were still sipping away and entourage of Morani brothers with their lovely and graceful wives arrived in the lobby too and I got up to welcome them too and I was introducing Karim Morani to my friends by saying this is Karim Bhai of famous 3 morani brothers but he interrupted me by saying no no we are not three brothers but four and fourth one is Shahid malik morani I felt so honoured to hear that I was really touched……….

There was a whole stream of stars ,producers,directors,new and upcoming talented people,financiers,the top notch Bombay and UAE business people it was like who’s who of entertainment industry.

We had some pre arranged meetings regarding some rather large future projects and we headed towards the meeting room we had pre booked and for few hours it was meetings after meetings and went on and on and all rather good and very promising.

I was getting little edgy as it was time to mingle and not sitting in stuffy meeting rooms so we finished meetings and headed to the shopping centre below the hotel there was an array of very up market designer shops and a nice choice of restaurants and my business partners Aneel Musarat and Nabeel Musarat pointed to a Lebanese restaurant and we all shifted our focus to fragrance of fresh food oozing out of this restaurants. And moved to the front door where a rather beautiful young lady greeted us with a smile and showed us to a central table. It was exciting as all around us there were stunning people dabbling in the art of gastronomy and I was busy looking at them and praising God for creating such beautiful people eventually food arrived and we tucked in and thoroughly enjoyed it.

After a short stroll we headed back to the hotel lobby as it was time to go to the football match amongst two movie star teams it was all very exciting as we arrived at the ground we were greeted by the Dubai ministry of sports officials after mingling for a few minutes I went to the changing rooms and caught up with John Abraham,Arjun Rampal ,Salman Khan and many others getting ready in their kits to go out on the turf and show their talent.

Whilst the teams were getting ready it was time to mingle and network and as you know who better than me to network and networked we did.

Eventually the Sheikh’s arrived and the match began with a big hoo haa it was such a friendly event and I felt at home I sat next to the Bollywood Goddess Saroj Khan the choreographer she was so friendly and chatty I thoroughly enjoyed sitting with her ,Shabo was sitting directly in front of me and we were exchanging chatters non stop and many people were going up or down and I was greeting every one I knew or didn’t know ,by the time the match finished the one’s who didn’t not know me knew who I was so it was more fun than the match itself.

After all the ceremonies at the football grounds we all went back to hotel to freshen up because in few hours time it was the Fund raising dinner in support of Tsunami relief fund so suit and a tie was in order and it was such a task for me to chose one tie out of 2 I carried………………….

So I was all ship shape with my baby pink shirt by pink courtesy of Aneel Musarat and Tie courtesy of Christian Dior and I thought I was looking all right and ready for serious fun at the dinner.

We all gathered down in the hotel lobby again meeting and greeting each other and exchanging courtesies and glances it was really electric as many people knew each other and the ones who did not they wanted to know others but did not have the clout to go up to others hence they were happy with glance exchanges. It was like ‘strangers in the night’

Slowly they all started to move towards the fleet of limos to a short drive to the stadium where Charity fund raiser dinner was being held .once at the venue things were really looking up it was all set up very professionally and in the open but it was freezing cold but the warmth from the people took the chill away and followed by the exquisite food there was no chill anymore

We sat on the top table with Suni,Shetty who looked shattered as he had not slept for 3 nights and Azhar ud din and Geeta Bijlani and few other people.

After the food the bidding started with few dresses from the movies like Salman khans shirts and Sushmita sen, s sari (oh how I wish I had the chance to buy it) Kareen, s dresses and of course Shah Rukh Khan, s dress.

Shah Rukh Khan and ever generous Nabeel Musarat

Bidding started and I was really stunned at the generosity of the people dresses were going like hot cakes than Aneel Musarat Chief Executive of Classic homes successfully bided for one of the dresses and than went to the stage and gave it all back for re-auction so more money could be raised next was SRK’s dress up for bidding and within minutes it went up to 30,000 dirham and my friend Nabeel Musarat the property tycoon from Manchester bought the SRK suit and than went to the stage and gave the suit back so it could be auctioned again people were just so ecstatic and they clapped and cheered Aneel and Nabeel non stop and gave them a standing ovation for their generosity.

Shakti and Perzadi were singing their praise Sunil Shetty had a big smile on his face because his efforts were bearing good fruits for the Charity.

It was great fun in aid of the disaster relief fund and everyone was very happy,there was one diamond merchant from Bombay who was most generous in giving the donations I wish could remember his name.

Eventually the dinner came to an end and everyone left to get back to their hotels we came back and in the hotel lobby it was like a MELA again so all stayed around till the vie hours of the morning, it was all very hectic but as SRK still had not arrived the oomph was still not there eventually every one went to bed as we all had a very exciting night of awards to look forward to

I was woken up about noon by a phone call from the lobby as there were some people waiting for me for more meetings downstairs I quickly got up and grabbed a shower and ran down and finished some more times in meetings it was beginning to look like we were having meetings abut meetings to have more meetings I am sure you know what I mean.

Than I went to shopping centre with my friends whilst walking around my Nabeel said me ,shahid look there is Gauri standing in starbucks coffee shop oh I said lets go and join her so we did as I approached the counter the cashier was about to take money from Gauri for her frappacinno but I should that you can not take money from our Queen so please return her money and Gauri looked up and laughed and persisted that she pays for her coffee as well as ours but I persisted that I pay for hers too eventually I won and we sat down for few minutes while coffee’s were being made and had a good chin wag ,Gauri told me that SRK will be in around 1830 he was delayed as was not feeling very well than coffee’s arrived and we moved on.

Shah Rukh Khan@ GIFA Awards

Eventually I came back to my hotel and as we walked in to the lobby there was a big hulchal at the main entrance and guess what there was Shah Rukh Khan in his full glory entering the hotel with Karim Morani and walked up and we eventually reached him too and hugged and welcomed him and than excused himself as he wanted to go up and get ready and I decided to go back to my hotel suite and chill out for few hours before getting ready for awards ceremony but alas there is no rest for the wicked ………………….my friends decided to come to my room so we could all chill together …….so we did……………………now it was time to get ready and shamooz up and we all did going down I bumped into shabo in the lift she was looking very exciting in baby pink suite it enhanced her personality a bit more and I asked her if she was expecting an award tonight and she said ‘well of course’ wow what confidence.

Than Saif Ali Khan came through in the lobby and when I kissed Rosa on the cheeks he said to her to watch him he is very naughty she replied do not worry I know him too well and I said to Saif not to worry because Rosa is too white so to speak and we all burst out laughing.

We all slowly made or way to the venue there were massive queues to get in but we did not have to wait and were ushered in straight.

As we got into the red carpet area I saw Salman Khan sitting in the front row and I went up to him and greeted him than we went to our seats 2 rows behind the big khan, John Abraham and Bipasha Basu were sitting in seats 1-2 and we had seats 3-4-5 so we sat around John greeted us all in and we had a good old chat on the other side of the row the ever trying Feroz Khan was sitting there with his rather young looking lady and next to him was Shakti and his son whilst we were still chatting the ceremony started and stars were coming in their droves and looking for seats Farah Khan and her newly wedded husband were sitting directly behind him and we had a chance to speak before the ceremony started ,it was all going smooth and cool with Gulshan Grover and Celina Jaitley opening the ceremony, awards were being handed in and out and everything was also projected on two giants screens one on either side of the stage. Every time there was a big star shown on the screens people all over the arena were ooohhh aaaaahhhhhhh but than it just eerily quiet as though something big was going to happen and than all of a sudden the King of Bollywood with his queen appeared on the big screen all oohs and aaahs turned into oooooo lala you could hear the young girls holding their breathes and not blinking just in case they missed him for a blink, it was electric all of a sudden nothing mattered to the crowd their man was in so that’s all they wanted to see than he gracefully walked up to the top row and was seated he waved to the crowds and as he turned he saw Salman Khan sitting on the other side and he walked up to him and hugged him in the mean time oooooos and lalas did not stop and ceremony stopped momentarily in his honour.

Once SRK sat down the atmosphere totally and utterly changed all of a sudden people were much more enthusiastic and eager to participate in the ceremony he brought spark into the event physically.

Winners got their awards so did SRK and once he came off the stage and started towards the back of the stage in the VIP room things just changed again and that was the end of ceremony.

On his way out he whispered to me to reconfirm the meeting arrangements a little later and I assured him that we will be there …he looked at me and looked at those beautiful ladies and smiled (his trade mark)and walked away with a big grin on his face.

He looked a billion dollar as he always does, you know only recently I am beginning to understand deeply why people love him so much, he never says anything wrong or out of place, he never hurts or annoys anyone, he is always there for you and you can bank on he is a giver hence that makes him a billion dollar.

So eventually we came back to the hotel and had a long business meeting with some future partners and it all went very well and eventually I took some pictures but the flash did not go.

We all went downstairs to the night club and had a bloody good party everyone turned up there SRK,Aftab Shavasdani,Saif Ali Khan,Kunal Dass, Gauri, Patloo,Gulshan Grover,Chunky Panday ,Farah Khan and her hubby and many many more and party went on till around 0400 and than we came back SRK had a flight at 0900 and we had a flight at 1030 that morning but everyone came back to my room and we had a non stop party and at 0700 we decided to stay another night than went to say goodbye to SRK and came back went to sleep and than another day shopping in Dubai.

I wish it went a few days more I was just hotting up…………….oh aren’t I greedy……..I wish you were all there but honest I thought about the forum members and truly wished you were all there but hey what the hell while you were reading this did you not feel you were with??????

Shahid Malik