Shah Rukh, Ash, Ajay Devgan's rich haul

Shah Rukh Khan stole the show at the 48th Filmfare Awards in Mumbai on February 21.

On stage to collect an award from the Swiss government, Shah Rukh charmed Geraldine Chaplin (daughter of comedian Charlie Chaplin, who presented him the trophy) and snatched the microphone from compere Malini Sharma (who made her debut in Raaz), even though she insisted there was no time for a speech.

As Sharma walked off, the audience was confused. Was this part of the Khan charm? He dimpled deviously on stage,  took a dig at the sponsored awards by telling winner Vivek Oberoi he should add Manikchand as his middle name, and commented that Padmini Kolhapure and Poonam Dhillon were apt choices to give away the Best Villain Award to Ajay Devgan.

Taking a dig at the Oscars for bypassing Devdas, Shah Rukh joked, "They must have viewed the film on a dry day," a quip that drew attention to the film's defeatist alcoholic protagonist.

Both Paro (Aishwarya Rai) and Chandramukhi (Madhuri Dixit) bagged awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. Interestingly Vyjayanthimala, who had played Chandramukhi in Bimal Roy's version of Devdas, had turned down the Filmfare Award at the time, arguing that hers was not a supporting part.

Vivek Oberoi happily accepted his Best Supporting Actor Award for Ram Gopal Varma's Company, and another for Best Debut in the same film.

Aishwarya's dance number (for which she was reportedly paid a whopping Rs 75 lakhs, Rs 5 lakhs less than what Kareena Kapoor got for dancing at the Zee Fairglow Awards in 2001) brought the house down. Mumbaiites almost missed the razzle dazzle of the awards as cable operators across the city went on strike. But matters were sorted out in time. Home viewers missed half an hour of the delayed telecast on Sony Entertainment Television.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas, which was condemned for deviating from its literary source by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, walked away with the award for the Best Scene -- for a sequence that brought together Paro and Chandramukhi, a meeting Chattopadhyay never conceived in his book.

The triumphant yet tense Sanjay Leela Bhansali (scheduled to leave the country February 22 for another awards function) reached the venue of the awards late, accompanied by his mother. He therefore missed seeing his film bag some of the 11 awards that it received.

Repeating the pattern set by the Zee and Screen Awards, Devdas bagged Best Film, Actor, Actress and Director Awards. Though jubilant, Bhansali felt sorry that the film's dialogue writer Prakash Kapadia, background musician Monty Sharma and actress Kiron Kher were left out. "But that's okay. God has been kind to Devdas. It has got so much."

Interestingly, four of the five films nominated for Best Film and Best Director were based on secondary sources. While Sanjay Bhansali's Devdas was inspired from a literary work, Abbas-Mustan's Humraaz, Vikram Bhatt's Raaz and Sanjay Gupta's Kaante were Hollywood-based.

The only truly original work in the reckoning for the awards was Ram Gopal Verma's Company which fetched awards for its debutant hero Oberoi, as also for Jaideep Saini's dialogues and Best Story.

The majority of the music awards were bagged by Mani Ratnam's Saathiya. Rahman won the Best Music Award over Ismail Darbar's Devdas and Nadeem-Shravan's Raaz. New singer Shreya Ghosal, Paro's voice in Devdas, bagged two awards for Best Playback Singer (shared with Kavita Krishnamurthy) and the R D Burman Award for Best New Musical Talent.

The Critics' Award was shared by Rani Mukherji (Saathiya) and Manisha Koirala (Company). Ajay Devgan bagged two richly deserved Critics' Awards for his performance in The Legend Of Bhagat Singh and Company, as well as the award for Best Actor in a Villainous Role in Deewangee.

Though Shah Rukh Khan won all the popular actor awards of 2002, Devgan is the single most awarded lead actor of the year.