Pakistani stars sizzle on memorable award night

Performances at the Lux Style Awards (LSA) serve as dramatic punctuation in between ogling designer dresses and tuxedos, listening to nervous gratitude aimed at parents, spouses and project crew after a win, and the generally not so great scripted dialogue of presenters. As usual, music uplifts and 2019’s performances shouldn’t disappoint. The recently held Lux Style Awards 2019 in Karachi, Pakistan, was all high and low lows and it marked an occasion where Pakistan is heading to grasp the importance of stardust all too well and is happy to put out there, spending millions and showcase what talent Pakistan Entertainment industry holds; a celebration of films, music, drama and fashion. Meanwhile where the jury was out, the judges were in and LSA was besieged under controversies. LSA jury received backlash for snubbing some of the most prominent projects of 2018 and celebrities including actors, producers and influencers took over social media to express their concern without any curtailment. The Lux Style Awards (LSA) collaborated with Frieha Altaf’s Catwalk for production, Nabila for Makeup and Farishteh Aslam of Talking Point for PR.The Lux Style Awards 2019 was a finale of not so rehearsed scripts. The LSA you see on television is not the LSA on ground. From Yasir Hussain’s flawless act to Saba Qamar’s not-so-perfect stint with constantly repeating most of her script to get it right, and Ahmed Ali Butt’s witty sense of humour along with power packed performances — it was nice to see all coming together though. It was a fantastic night of racy performers, some of them a lot of fun — Maya Ali’s performance was by far the most rousing stage performance witnessed that evening. However, the most “dhuaandaar” (steamy) performance belonged to Saba Qamar who set the stage on fire as she arrived to move on Mera Babu Chail Chabeela; all those jhatkas and thumkas! Maya and Saba both performed on the remixed songs of Pakistani veteran actress, Shabnam, as a tribute to her, who also received the Unilever Chairman’s Award.Watching Meera shake a leg with all the energy of a diva was equally gorgeous. Meera’s 100-watt smile was enough to tell us how happy she is with her recent hit Baaji and now the LSAs being her celebratory premise. Talking of performances, let’s just ignore what Momina Mustehsan did and let’s pretend that her dance performance never happened, although as an opening act it set the bar quite low for the night. The award ceremony subtly touched upon the topic of cyber bullying as well. We couldn’t thank enough for subtlety – because an award show is an all masala and entertainment and if a certain issue is rubbed in the face or overdosed, people yawn and leave. Mehwish Hayat got on stage to express the bravery with which not only her but public figures have to face negative criticism, mockery, cyber bullying and hate.The highlight of the event was Yasir Hussain proposing to his rumoured girlfriend Iqra Aziz, making their relationship official. He put a ring on her finger as the stunned actress smiled tearfully and the couple indulged in PDA. Where the rumour has it that the couple has been engaged before the show and it was just a re-enactment, too much intimacy followed by the proposal between the two is to be noticed! Kids and families watch this show, for God’s sake!Unfortunately, despite having so many stars in the house, there were flaws that left much to be desired throughout the evening. A poor script and weak direction made some segments very dull and they were unable to hold the audience’s attention.While the show lacked the presence of some major stars of the Pakistani entertainment industry –Fawad Khan, Sajal Aly, and Adnan Siddiqui to name a few – Lux has patently raised the bar for acknowledging the fashion and entertainment of Pakistani industry. Well here’s Kudus to Frieha Altaf and her team for putting up glamorous show and a fabulous line-up of red-carpet appearances.