Over the weekend gone by, Madhur Bhandarkar was a busy man. While in Chandigarh for the shoot of his soon to be released Fashion, he was also conferred the 'Pride of India' award. The award came from All India Anti Terrorist Front (AIATF). "The award was quite an honor since it came from a renowned non-political and non-sectarian organization like AIATF which is committed to foster a spirit of intellectual inquiry, understanding and goodwill amongst all people. It was also a matter of pride because the man who presented me the award was Mr. Maninderjit Singh Bitta who is known as 'Zinda Shaheed' for his extra ordinary contribution when it comes to fight against terrorism." Madhur was awarded this title for his extra ordinary contribution to Indian Cinema with his recent National Award for Traffic Signal getting special mention. "I am very glad to achieve this high honor. My movies are not explosive, maybe they just hold up a mirror to society. My movies are not judgmental, I just show what happens in our society, sometimes there could be a solution and sometimes there may be none. Life goes on", says Madhur Bhandarkar. Talking about awards, he would be visiting Delhi again on 2nd September for an event which would see him collecting his National Award for the Best Director from President Mrs. Pratibha Patil. Meanwhile, the city of Chandigarh also saw him wrapping up a quick fire schedule featuring Priyanka Chopra. Other prominent actors who joined her in the shoot were Raj Babbar and Kiran Juneja. "The scenes we canned are critical to the film's plot and we chose to be in Chandigarh rather than a set in Mumbai since we wanted authenticity to the proceedings. The character played by Priyanka is shown to be an upcoming model from Chandigarh and we wanted to bring the essence of the city alive in the scenes", informs Madhur. With the film being pre-poned to 17th October, how well placed is Fashion to meet the deadline? "There aren't any worries as we are on the right track. Just a few days of work remains to be wrapped up and we should be all set for the post production work", says Madhur confidently. ... read more »