The recently concluded Eleventh Annual TOTO Awards 2015 saw not just the advent of new talent joining the ranks of accomplished artistes in the city but also the coming together of like-minded people to support the arts.
The Toto Awards were instituted 11 years ago by Toto Funds the Arts (TFA), a non-profit trust set up in 2004 in memory of Angirus ‘Toto’ Vellani. TFA nurtures and encourages young artistes in India through awards, workshops, talks, concerts, film screenings and literary events. Toto was intensely passionate about music, literature, films and the arts. His untimely demise spurred his family and friends to create a non-profit foundation that would encourage the young to give expression to their artistic ideas.
The annual TOTO awards are intended to recognise excellence in various fields of artistic expression. Starting with observing a moment of silence for artistes who had passed away in the last year, the ceremony moved on to a lighter note with the introduction of the nominations for the photography category that featured eight works by each of the nominees. This was followed by the reading of short excerpts from works of the nominees for the creative writing categories in English and Kannada, some of which had the audience in splits of laughter. The nominees for music followed with short clips of the compositions of the artistes. Finally, the short film category featured small trailers.
Before the results were announced, city-based band Parvaaz, who were one of the nominees for the music category, performed an eclectic unreleased composition much to the glee of the audience. After the rousing applause, everyone in the audience waited in bated breath for the results.
Renowned novelist, playwright, translator and art critic Shanta Gokhale, who was the chief guest, took centre stage to hand over the prizes to the winners. A total of eight awards and certificates were given under the four categories. The winner in the music category who received a cash award of Rs. 60,000 was Parvaaz who again received accolades from the thrilled audience.
In the creative writing in English category, two awards of Rs. 30,000 each, supported by Salmin Sherrif, went to Kaushik Viswanath from Chennai and Mohit Parikh from Jaipur. For creative writing in Kannada, one award for Rs. 30,000, supported by Bhoomija Trust, went to Moulya M. from Mysore. For the photography category, two awards of Rs. 30,000 each, supported by Tasveer, went to Soumya Sankar Bose from Kolkata and Sameer Raichur from Bengaluru.
The final short films category presented two awards of Rs. 30,000 each, supported by Arundhati Ghosh, to Yugandhara Muthukrishnan from Mumbai for her work Khandava Parvam and Rohin Raveendran Nair for his film Little Hands . The nominees all received special certificates as well.
