Rishi Kapoor's Filmfare cost him Rs 30000 in 1974. Can you buy the award for 6 lakh now?
If Rishi Kapoor paid Rs 30,000 to win (read: buy) a Filmfare Best Actor award for Bobby in 1974, how much does the same award cost today?
In 2016, Rishi Kapoor had confessed to The Quint that he bought his Filmfare Best Actor award for his 1973 film Bobby.
Now, in a recent interview with India Today Television, Rishi Kapoor admitted that he paid Rs 30,000 to get the award.
Yes, I bought a film award for RS 30,000 in 1973; I am ashamed of what I did but was young and rich! @chintskap tells me @IndiaToday tv Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) January 18, 2017
Rishi Kapoor's Bollywood debut as a male lead was in the 1973 film Bobby for which he received the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in 1974.
So, hypothetically, if a Filmfare Best Actor can still be (is still being?) bought today, it would cost around Rs 6.19 lakh.
The new amount, adjusted to inflation, can be simply calculated using the CPI (Consumer Price Index), the variable officially used by the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) to measure inflation.
The formula to calculate the inflated amount is:
(Average Consumer Price Index in Year 1 (in this case, 1974) / Average Consumer Price Index in Year 2) x Rs 30,000 (money Rishi Kapoor claims to have paid for his Filmfare Best Actor award)
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That Filmfare Awards, or for that matter any film award televised for entertainment, can be bought with money, has been a timeless conspiracy theory.
It snowballed when this year, Manoj Bajpayee (Aligarh) and Akshay Kumar (Airlift) were not nominated for the Best Actor award at the 74th Filmfare Awards ceremony. Twitterati exploded with jibes at the awards committee alleging that deserving actors did not get award nods because they did not pay money.
We dnt take paid awards ???#Airlift #FilmfareAwards FILMFARE AWARDS ON SALE pic.twitter.com/KZWyfLUBBm Deep Valesha (@deepvalesha) January 10, 2017
it's shocking Akki didn't get a nomination how can someone ignore his acting in Airlift corruption everywhere FILMFARE AWARDS ON SALE W?W (@Saifwowwarrior) January 10, 2017
Paid @filmfare Awards cannot defined him & his acting @jiteshpillaai ?????? Go hell to hell wid ur Fake shows ??????FILMFARE AWARDS ON SALE pic.twitter.com/FxZoOzqpAt Hail Jawan ??? (@Creative1Tanu) January 10, 2017
No nomination for Akshay,Manoj,Randeep,Nawazuddin,Taapsee,Fatima,Airlift.Are FILMFARE AWARDS ON SALE Mr @jiteshpillaai..??? Bollywood Planet (@PlanetBwood) January 10, 2017
Aur ye #FilmfareAwards walo ke muh pe tamacha ??????
FILMFARE AWARDS ON SALE ONE MONTH TO JOLLY LLB 2 pic.twitter.com/ShziLpURJC Deep Valesha (@deepvalesha) January 10, 2017
Well said Aamir sir ????????????
FILMFARE AWARDS ON SALE pic.twitter.com/z9i7ab0d18 Deep Valesha (@deepvalesha) January 10, 2017
Not just the Twitterati, music composer Amaal Mallik too took to Facebook and penned a long message about the credibility, or lack of it, of Bollywood awards.
While conjecture is never fact and rumours are not news, mathematics shows that if an actor were to pay Rs 6 lakh and above to the right people today in 2017, he or she might just get rewarded for his 'contribution' to Hindi cinema.
(P.S: If the calculations are wrong, a mathematician is welcome to correct us.)
(The writer tweets as @devarsighosh.)