Hindi
Box office: ‘Welcome Back’ rakes in Rs 50.2 crore in opening weekend
MUMBAI: Welcome Back has clearly cashed in on its brand equity. However, it is not just the brand that has helped the film but its clean entertainer tag has made it generally acceptable. A zany comedy, it took an encouraging opening on Friday and, as expected, registered better figures on Saturday and Sunday on the strength of mouth publicity.
The film belied trade estimates of about Rs 12 crore Friday at best and went on to collect over Rs 14 crore. The weekend tally stands at Rs 50.2 crore, which is healthy though the unnaturally high cost of the film’s making will always be hard to recoup.
Phantom proves to be a dud at the box office. The film had decent figures to show only on its first Saturday it being a Raksha Bandhan holiday in parts of India. While collections remained static on the Sunday that followed, it started dropping drastically from Monday onwards and the Rs 33.2 crore weekend could not go beyond Rs 45.8 crore to show for the first week.
Baaneky Ki Crazy Baraat proves to be a costly farce as the film sinks badly at the box office not even managing to cross a one crore mark in its first week stopping short at just about Rs 90 lakh.
Kaun Kitney Paani Mein collects a poor Rs 30 lakh in its first week.
Manjhi The Mountain Man holds well in its second week. Released on a limited screen engagement, the film adds Rs 2.8 crore in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 12.25 crore.
All Is Well proves a total disaster managing to put together just about Rs 40 lakh in its second week to take its two week tally to Rs 14.3 crore.
Brothers comes to the end of its not so impressive run with figures of Rs 65 lakh in its third week taking its three week total to Rs 77.35 crore.
Drishyam collects another Rs 1.25 crore to take its five week total to Rs 81.2 crore.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan collects Rs 50 lakh in its seventh week to take its seven week total to Rs 317.85 crore.
Bahubali: The Beginning (Hindi-Dubbed) adds Rs 70 lakh in its eighth week taking its eight week tally to Rs 109.3 crore.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
