Hindi
Eminent film historian Feroze Rangoonwala passes away
NEW DELHI: Eminent film historian Feroze Rangoonwala, credited with having written the highest number of books on Indian cinema, is no more.
Rangoonwala passed away at his residence in Mumbai earlier this week, aged 77, of prolonged sickness.
He has left behind a wealth of information on Indian cinema, particularly at a time when efforts are on to save cinematic material for archival purposes.
Rangoonwala was best known for creating the first book of Indian filmography in 1969, Indian Film Index, and his magnum opus, Pictorial History of Indian Cinema, which for its period of issue had a record run in printing. Its Russian translation led to Indian cinema being introduced to the big Soviet readership, which loved Indian films. The book also saw multiple printings.
It came about five years after Indian Film written by an American film historian Erik Barnouw and Indian filmmaker S Krishnaswamy, which was the other major book on Indian cinema at that time.
Rangoonwala wrote 15 major books spanning a career of five decades. These included Indian cinema, Past and Present in 1983, and several monographs on different film personalities including those on filmmakers Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy – some written for the National Film Archives of India. Other books include Satyajit Ray’s Art, Seventy-five years of Indian cinema, and Bharatiya Chalchitra Itihas.
He started as a film publicist in Mumbai in the early 1950s, and soon created a major hobby into a scholastic career. He also collected a large number of film posters and rare photographs. His knowledge of the film industry made him a much sought after person to sit in both international and Indian film juries.
Unfortunately Rangoonwala remained least acknowledged by the Indian government circles and did not receive any accolades.
Rangoonwala finally called it a day in 2006, as illness dogged him.
He sold off his entire collection of Indian cinema memorabilia to a collector of film history and retreated into private life. He also donated some rare photographs from cinema to the National Film Archives of India.
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.
