It was an evening that would probably be recorded as the most star-spangled in the hoary history of Bollywood. Everyone who mattered was there for the premiere of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black".
"Wouldn't miss this for the world," dimpled Dino Morea who was among the earlier guests to walk the red carpet leading up to the elaborately decorated foyer of the IMAX multiplex theatre in Mumbai.
The dress code was black, of course! And hardly anyone broke the dress code.
Everyone held their collective breath to see what the lady in white Simi Garewal would do. She came in black and white. "I tried very hard. This is the best I could do," she laughed.
"Am I black enough?" grinned Shah Rukh Khan and then quickly put on his black leather jacket over his black outfit. Later after the overpowering film, Shah Rukh walked up to the film's performing maestro Amitabh Bachchan and touched his feet. Shah Rukh confessed he had never done that before. "But then this is the kind of performance that commands this sort of respect."
The screening started late (at 10 p.m.) since Mr Bachchan's special guests Anil and Tina Ambani got held up.
One of the last guests to arrive was Dilip Kumar and his lovely wife Saira Banu. During the screening Saira Banu became so disturbed by scenes showing the male protagonist's growing Alzeihmer's disease that she walked out and stood quietly in the corner of the foyer.
"The film effects you in ways never before," commented Boman Irani during the interval. He was seen chatting up one of the film's bright players Nandana Sen. Inside the theatre nine-year old Ayesha Kapoor was quite the belle of the ball. A lot of people came forward to shake her hands during interval.
Rekha was surprisingly social, chatting up everyone from financier Bharat Shah to a totally transformed Seema Biswas who, if we recall, had played a deaf-and-mute character in Bhansali's first film "Khamoshi: The Musical". Wonder what she thought of Rani Mukherjee's hypnotic turn as a physically challenged diva. No one asked. Biswas with her new crew-cut and hip look was unrecognisable!
Urmila Matondkar came escorted by dress designer Manish Malhotra and Tusshar Kapoor. "It's my birthday. And what a superb gift! To say 'Black' takes our cinema to another level is putting it mildly," she enthuses at intermission. "Sanjay surpasses all expectations. I can conduct an entire opera on Mr Bachchan's performance."
Mr Bachchan is deeply moved. "It's like nothing I had expected. Everyone seems stunned. Dilip Kumar Saab to Shah Rukh and Urmila...they just don't have the words for the film."
Throughout the evening before "Black" was premiered on four screens simultaneously, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and his mother Leela stood at the foyer receiving the who's-who of Mumbai's elite. Rani Mukherjee dressed in a shimmering black saree, rushed in and joined them later. The scene stealer of the evening Ayesha Kapoor is pulled into the welcoming committee by Mr Bachchan as she arrives with her parents and godmother who has to be accommodated at the last minute.
And then begins the experience of the evening...As "Black" unfolds on screen audiences fall into a state of melancholic muteness. "You just don't want to say anything after the film. The first shot itself of Rani when she looks up to the sky seems to be taken by god," observes Aditya Pancholi in a choked voice.
Bhansali is quiet throughout the evening. "All the pain and the suffering finally adds up," he whispers to me.
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