By Dyanne Coelho

Ouch! The Press Club Mumbai organised the the ‘Ouch’ Awards, a satirical awards show that felicitated the blunders made in the media industry. The event hosted by stand-up comedian Anuvab Pal, featured trophies given out on a humorous note to known names who t some point or the other stood out for the wrong reason. The ‘Ouch’ Awards was a prelude to the more serious RedInk Awards organized by the Club scheduled for April 30, which applauds excellence in journalism.

“A lot of media is made up of people making asses of themselves and that’s getting a lot of readership and viewership. This is just a way to laugh at ourselves, to recognize the milestones of stupidity,” said Gurbir Singh, Chairman of the Mumbai Press Club.

The award for Transparency in Public Life went out to none other than Arvind Kejriwal for his tweet; ‘Running 102 fever since yesterday. Severe loose motions. Sad that I won’t be able to attend office today.’Seems like he’s taken transparency in politics to a whole new level.

Following this award was the ‘Global Ouch for Leadership in Absentia’ award; which, no prize for guesses here, went to Rahul Gandhi.

There was a long list of nominees for the ‘Golden Ouch for Advancing the Cause of Women’ including Abu Azmi, Sharad Yadav, Mulayam Singh, Giriraj Singh, Tapas Pal and many more. Finally it was a tie; Giriraj Singh walked away with the award for advancing the cause of women and furthering relations with foreign nations, while Sharad Yadav bagged the award for his racist remarks on the skin of South Indian women. “I massage him with Fair and Lovely,” said Yadav’s massage man who picked up the award on his behalf.

For the joint effort of furthering the cause of women’s safety in our country and highlighting a supposedly male-dominated society, the ‘Silver Ouch for Advancing the Cause of Women’ undoubtedly went to A.P. Singh and M.L. Sharma, the defense lawyers in the Nirbhaya gang rape case, who made their thoughts very clear to the world in the BBC documentary, India’s Daughter. Speaking of BBC, the news channel received a special Ouch for ‘Best Science Reporting’, for turning the ‘hadron’ collider into the ‘hardon’ collider. A dressed up Prince Charles received the award from Mr. Ayaz Memon.

The Ouch for ‘Confession of the Year’ went to Coast Guard Officer B.K. Loshali for shooting down a Pakistani boat, once again using biryani as a metaphor for Indian hospitality. Part two of this award went to Public Prosecutor, Ujjwal Nikam for his biryani lie in an attempt to build public opinion against Kasab.

The Golden Ouch for Best History Reportingwent to Capt. Anand Bodas for his insistence that Indians, and not the Wright Brothers, were the first to fly planes between countries, continents and even planets, and that too in all directions, forward, backward and sideways as well.

The Ouch for ‘Labors in Family Planning’went to none other than BJP MLA, and RSS member, Sakshi Maharaj for putting forth the suggestion that all Hindu women have four kids. In his absence, a woman with 11 kids stepped forward to pick up the award on his behalf.

The ‘Golden Ouch for the most Non-Violent Statement’ for his sweeping accusations on Mahatma Gandhi and Subash Chandra Bose went to former SC judge and former PCI Chairman, Markandey Katju.

For a blooper in a newspaper image, the Ouch went to the Hindustan Times for the PTI image that showed a Chinese trade delegation, but was captioned as convicts of the Shakti Mills gang rape being taken to prison. The newspaper had printed the wrong image.

The Golden Ouch for the best criticism of the press was bagged by Gen. VK Singh and Justice Markandey Katju jointlyfor the coining of the term ‘Presstitutes’ which is a combination of people of the press and destitutes.

For her tweets on Marathi Cinema, and for uplifting the American popcorn over the taste of the Indian Vada Pao and Misal, the Golden Ouch for food Critic of the year went to Shobhaa De.

The final award of the night and the most prestigious of the Ouchies, the Lifetime Achievement award was awarded to Indian politician, Subramanian Swamy, for his consistency in continually delivering provocative comments on both enemies and friends alike. In his absence, the award was received by none other thanShri Narendra Modi, or maybe just a lookalike.

It seems that no stand-up comedian can walk off stage without taking a crack at Arnab Goswami. Anuvab Pal concluded the award ceremony by sending squeals of laughter and giggles through the audience with his imitation of the Times Now journalist’s on-screen manner.

Happy with the outcome of the first ever Ouch Awards Ceremony, Gurbir Singh proposed making the event a regular one, “We have received a positive response this time, and we look forward to making this an annual event on a larger scale next year onwards.”