MUMBAI: After having given popular and path breaking compositions in various bollywood and regional films over the years, renowned composer Shankar Mahadevan has bagged his fourth National Award as Best Male Playback Singer for the song ‘Bolo Na’ from the film Chittagong. The 60th National Film Awards were announced at a ceremony held today in New Delhi.
Speaking with Radioandmusic.com, an ecstatic Mahadevan said, “I am very happy that such a melodious song has received the award. It is purely a classical track based on ragas. The song did not get any commercial recognition which was disappointing as the film won several awards at an international level. But I am happy that it has finally got the recognition from fans and won a National Award. I dedicate my award to Ehsaan and Loy for the music and Prasoon Joshi for writing beautiful lyrics for it.”
The win marks Mahadevan’s fourth National Award. Earlier, he picked up the honour in 2000 as Best Male Playback Singer for ‘Yenna Solla Pogirai’ for the Tamil film Kandukondain Kandukondain, then in 2004 as Best Music Direction for Kal Ho Naa Ho as part of the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy trio and his third in 2008 as Best Male Playback Singer for ‘Maa’ from Taare Zameen Par.
Moreover, Prasoon Joshi picked up National Award for Best Lyrics for the song ‘Bolo Na’ for Chittagong. Aarti Anklekar Tikekar won the Best Female Playback Singer for the song ‘Palakein Naa Moon Don’ from the film Samhita (Marathi). The Best Sound Recording award was picked up by Gangs of Wasseypur, while the Best Background Score trophy was won by Kaliyachan (Malayalam).
A special jury award was also conferred on Rituparno Ghosh and Nawazuddin Siddiqui for the films Chitrangadha (Bengali), Kahaani, Gangs of Wasseypur, Dekh Indian Circus and Talaash (Hindi).
In the Feature Film category, a total of 38 films from 14 languages were selected for the awards.
The jury for the awards was headed by Basu Chatterjee for Feature Films, Aruna Raje for Non-Feature Films and Swapan Mullick for Best Writing on Cinema.
The prestigious 60th National Film Awards were announced at a joint press conference addressed by the Chairpersons of the three juries.