A glitzy and glamour-filled awards nite was held at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on November 30 by Santosham. Top stars like Mahesh Babu, Jagapati Babu flew in for the awards ceremony. Naturally, the crowds went berserk seeing Mahesh who has just bagged a hit with Athithi.

The best movie was Bommarillu and the best actress was Genelia for the same film. Puri Jagannath was given the Best Director’s award for Pokiri. Dr K L Narayana received the award as the Best Producer for Rakhi, from Dr D Ramanaidu.

Amidst cheers and whistles, Mahesh said he was happy to get the award and thanked the magazine for giving it. He also said it was a great feeling to take it in Dubai amidst so many Telugu people. Mahesh also remembered his grandmother Durgamma who was a great admirer and supporter of his. Though she was no more, he said he always felt her presence. Not to forget Suresh Kondeti, he praised the efforts of the publisher in taking the awards out of the country to Middle East, which had a huge Telugu workforce.

Jagapati Babu said that Mahesh was indeed a prince and added that he was the only actor in Telugu, who had the looks to make it in Bollywood and Hollywood.

Other popular awards included -- the best dialogues writers’ award went to the Paruchuri Brothers. Namrata Mahesh Babu gave the award to Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao. Best villain was Sai Kumar for Samanyudu and Roja gave away the award. Best choreographer’s award went to Amma Rajasekhar for Yogi. The best male playback award went to S P Balasubramanyam for Sri Ramadasu. Mamata Mohandas was the best playback singer and Mumaith Khan got the award as the best dancer. Pulagam Chinnarayana got the Best PRO award for Pokiri, Devadasu, Pellaina Kottalo and Vikramarkudu.

The audience got their share of entertainment too, with a huge line-up of programmes that included dance performances, skits and songs by top playback singers. Mamata Mohandas sang the Akaleste song from Shankar Dada MBBS. Then, there was Mumaith Khan doing all her popular item numbers. Paruchuri Brothers and Sai Kumar mesmerized the audience with their power-packed dialogues.

Producer’s association president Tammareddy Bharadwaja, directors’ association president Sagar and secretary TVD Prasad all had words of praise for Suresh. D Suresh, Bharatam Raju, Selvamani were among the other guests present.

Kondeti Suresh said he was very happy that for the first time a Telugu awards function was being held outside India and thanked the guests, artistes and film industry bigwigs and the audience for attending the awards nite and making it a success.

The fifth anniversary issue of Santosham was released by Mahesh on the occasion.