MUMBAI: Pegged as the �Mother' of all music awards, The Radio Mirchi Music awards got the entire music fraternity together for the first time on Saturday.

On this occasion, the adage 'baap hamesha baap hota hai' held true as the 'baap' of the music industry, A R Rahman swept all the awards – for Jodhaa Akbar, for which Ashutosh Gowariker was kept busy, and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na which had Abbas Tyrewala scurrying up the stage umpteen times, and quipping, I just messaged Rahman that we have been kept busy on your behalf.... One wonders what father Rahman answered – he already has the grandmother of all awards, the Oscars, under his belt.

Like any other awards, the ceremony were grand with �punctuated' performances by Bipasha Basu, Kunal Ganjawala, Shreya Goshal and Genelia D'Souza (she was in a magic cloak, but made everyone clap nevertheless). For the awards, lyricist Javed Akhtar, the chairman of the jury, along with composers and musicians like Louis Banks, Anu Malik, Suresh Wadkar, Lalit Pandit, Kailash Kher, Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra, Prasoon Joshi heard around 400-500 songs to shortlist the nominees, to which a music enthusiast at the awards whispered, They could have well brought a compilation CD of Rahman and made their work easier....

As anticipated, the album of the year award went to Rahman. Javed Ali picked up the award for his vocals on Jashn-e-bahara (and shared an emotional moment with the audience when he called his parents on stage to share his triumph), Benny Dayal was chosen as the best upcoming singer and Dominique Cerejo picked up the trophy for Ye Tumhari meri Baatein from Rock On.

It was certainly a good decision to have Bela Shende as the female vocalist of the year. The upcoming music director award went to Dhruv Ghanekar for Drona (a few cynics suggested that the ideal choice should have been Amit Trivedi who made a remarkable debut with Aamir).

A relief for the backroom guys, the awards also gave recognition to the sound mixers and arrangers – perhaps after Resul Pukootty's Oscar win, the award ceremony giving weight to both beauty and â€?brains' – a good start nevertheless. The technical award for song mixing went posthumously to H Shridhar for Jodhaa Akbar, whereas TR Krishna Chetan picked up an award for arranging the song Jashn-e-Bahara. An emotional Ashutosh Gowariker picked up Sridhar's trophy, remarking, "Thanks are also due to Sridhar's family for sparing Sridhar the number of hours he spent with us on the music, when he should ideally have been spending time at home." Saxophone player and arranger, Manohari Singh known for his remarkable work on R D Burman's songs received the Jury Salute for Memorable contribution to music award 

Host Shaan took most of the �anchoring' weight on his shoulders by mimicking singers and composers and very soon apologised – reasoning, that the �mother' had scripted it. On the other hand, Tulip Joshi played the camera's eye candy and gave �break' shots as the music family dined towards the end of the function.

Shaan also took upon himself a delicate task - getting Javed Akhtar (who in his verbose style, nearly half compered the show himself ) to pen some impromptu lyrics and getting them set to impromptu tunes by Jatin, Anu Malik, Sajid Wajid, Aadesh Srivastav and Lalit. The lyrics were as unlyrical as they could be - with the elections and the IPL tied into the same verse. The composers buckled in to the task sportingly....and each came up with a tune typical of their own style.

Music, which has played such a definitive role in the Indian films, finally got an award slot of it's own – and who better can do it than the growing and dominating film industry. However, since it was �mother' of all awards, one wonders if children like the �non-film' music were also the part of the family. Neverthless, it looked like radio, which is otherwise detached from playing non-film music does have a taste for it – we enjoyed Niladri Kumar's Priority played just before the show started.