Hindi
BO: ‘Hamari Adhuri Kahani’ disappoints with Rs 15.8 crore opening weekend
MUMBAI: Vishesh Films and the men behind the banner, Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt are known to follow this sequence of one hit after a couple of flops. And, on that count as well as for the reason that Mahesh Bhatt had penned the script after a gap of almost a decade and a half, expectations were aplenty.
However, Hamari Adhuri Kahani has come as a big disappointment with the film’s main culprits being the story and the scripting.
What’s more, it is a totally regressive film for no reason and at an unjustifiable cost. For a change, critics as well as the audience seem to be on the same side on this one. The film has managed to collect Rs 15.8 crore for its opening weekend.
Dil Dhadakne Do, a pretentious movie about a Delhi Punjabi family trying to put up a show of affluence despite dire situation, does not go well with the audience in general. The film finds patronage in few metros at select multiplexes. The film has many flaws and takes it audience for granted. It creates a number of tracks of various characters including a parallel love story but fails to sum them up in the end. The film has managed to put together Rs 54.4 crore for its first week thanks to lack of any challenging opposition and increased admission rates (which the distributor planned to continue throughout the week instead of the opening weekend as is the practice with major films but relented after the response to the film, which was weak). The film will scrap the bottom after its second weekend.
Tanu Weds Manu Returns is the flavor of the season and the reason is Kangana Ranaut, the force behind the film with her captivating performance in a dual role. While the comparison to the first version may be unfair, which many feel was much better, this one will be five times bigger hit at the box office as things stand. Finally, the figures speak; opinions may differ. The film has an amazing third week befitting a Salman Khan starrer (or better) adding Rs 20.18 crore in its third week to take its three week tally to Rs 138.13 crore for three weeks.
Piku adds Rs 1.05 crore in its week to take its five-week total to Rs 79.77 crore, whereas Gabbar Is Back collects Rs 30 lakh in its fifth week thus taking its five-week total to Rs 80.05 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.
