"You’ll be seeing stars in June" was the catch line on banners fluttering in the wind near the Tourism Promotion Bureau last week from a few days before the IIFA Awards night.

With terrorism now eradicated and the entire country open to tourists, one wondered why this reference to the possibility of being mugged or otherwise shocked to see stars in the city in June was being told to the whole world. Could it be another piece of ingenious publicity by those who still lord it over tourism promotion, after wasting millions on the launch of a "Small Miracle", where the shedding of the small word was a really big miracle?

In the event, the promise of seeing stars in June was an advertisement for a new brand of mobile phone from India launched in Colombo, to coincide with the IIFA Awards. Quite a starry announcement indeed!

If the organizers of this mega event were unable to provide the galaxy from Bollywood they promised to shine over Colombo, there was no shortage of other stars in the city.

Although many were seeing stars when they got to know the price of the tickets for the Grand Finale at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium, there were more than starry halos around the heads of those who could afford such opulence, for the pleasure of a night out mingling with the not so glitterati of Bollywood.

Yet the scramble for tickets saw many people seeing stars at the abundance of tickets that some stars and starlets of local society were getting, in a determined effort to show that when it comes to mingling with stars, even of the lesser Bollywood caliber, they knew the tricks of the star trek of influence peddling.

As the date of the events from the Fashion Show to the Awards night grew closer, the star attraction for many was that ever elusive ticket. Those who had access to them were like demi-gods, strutting about in their temporary glory of having tickets to where those with lesser money, influence, pull or arm-twisting capability were not expected to be seen.

As the first week of June began, the Talk of the Town was about who would be seen with the stars and who would not.  Much of the pleasure in the success at somehow cadging a ticket to be seen in the company even of lesser known stars and some planets that did not twinkle, was lost when  local TV was unable to  provide live coverage of the events, due to a franchise arrangement by the Indian organizers of the IIFA Awards.  Sri Lankans could only see stars whirling around their heads, being relegated to be less than even distant onlookers at what was projected as a huge event that would bring glory to the country, and more tourists to our shores, as well as, a stampede of investors over here.

The point was driven home by the Indian organizers of this event when its spokesman explained the absence of sufficient facilities for local media personnel to cover the various items in this star spangled programme. He said the Sri Lankan media would be treated as "country cousins". He may be a big star in public relations and event management, but missed the point that country cousin is often a convenient euphemism for poor relation. No wonder the local media and many members of the foreign media too, were seeing stars at how they were being treated by these moghuls of IIFA and their pankah-wallahs of Sri Lankan Tourism

The absence of the big stars both from Bollywood and Indian investment, even leaving out those listed in Fortune 500, did not deter the promoters of IIFA Awards 2010, from living in a world of star-gazing make believe; dreaming of the stars that would not be here, and trying to give the impression that the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium on the night of June 4th would be something like the Big-Bang that is said to have produced the Universe from the clash of real stars.

If the tickets were priced at figures more than a light year away from what the average filmgoer could dream of, there were was also another scramble for the invitations; an even more important opening into what one was made to believe was the dazzling world of stars. There were new lists propping up every hour, with shiny politicos and those in their starry trail being showered with the stardust of fleeting importance, having the all important invitations rushed to them. The delivery services of the starry trail were working even at midnight before the finale.   Not surprisingly, many of those who genuinely deserved to be ushered into the presence of these stars of a sort either did not get their invites or got them too late to make the arrangements to be in the spotlight.      

While there are reports of many a local star of the cinema seeing stars at not being invited, there were others who thought their local star-ranking put them on a higher plane in the firmament of cinema than most of those lesser stars of Bollywood who made it to the do.

Of course there was much revelry in the hotels in the two or three nights that preceded the big event, where many of the local tinsel types were seeing stars around them, some in the real flesh and most others the result of the costly spirits  they had imbibed to get into the starry mood.

Although city hotels had been told to keep all their rooms available for the galaxies of stars during the week of the show, all of them, whatever their star rating, had insufficient IIFA stars to make a real difference to their bottom lines, or bring the luster of stars to their cash machines. With many of the highly touted stars doing a no-show, — including the Big Star that is supposed to be Brand Ambassador for IIFA, who promised to have falling stars lighting up the city when he launched IIFA Colombo barely two months ago — there are reports of a real battle for star class rooms among locals with super star egos; those who believed they would be made stars overnight if they slept in a room set aside for a big star that did not come. 

And so it all came to a star-shredded finish; and the public are now seeing new stars at the cost of all this. There is reportedly serious concern as to how such expense hitting the stars was allowed to happen, with fingers pointing at those who believed their stars were on the rise as they planned to sprinkle stars over Colombo, and also bring some starlight into their pockets.

The advertisement which announced that "You’ll be seeing stars in June" has been proved more than correct, although it was not the right type of stars that were seen by those not the charmed circle of starlight. As the starlight faded away, one realized that all this starry bunkum was largely the work of those guiding Sri Lanka’s tourism promotion for many years, in the belief that costly gimmicks are the miracle of success, and are still riding high on the Milky Way of success.

And what about Bachchan?

It is not just the Big Bachchan, but the son and daughter-in-law Bachchan, too.  Amitabh, Abishek and Aishwarya? Well, even the Bachchans are not strangers to cold feet, we are told.

Amitabh was reportedly promoting tourism in Gujarat, where he is Brand Ambassador for Gujarat Tourism – and thereby hangs a question about his interest in Sri Lanka Tourism. He must be feeling an even bigger star with the Canadian Eelamist lobby deifying him for giving the slip to Sri Lanka and IIFA.

But those "Small Miracle" people who brought IIFA starlight into their lives, even for a hectic month or two, are bound to say: "What to do machchan, even without Bachchan, we were in the starlight all the way; and Bachchan paved the way"