Hindi
Nagesh Kukunoor gets SRK for a cameo
MUMBAI: In a bid to give the noble cause of eye donation an impetus director Nagesh Kukunoor has got none other than the Baadshah of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan to do a cameo in his upcoming Marathi film Dhanak.
According to media reports, SRK recently shot for this movie in Rajasthan for two days despite his busy schedule.
Nagesh Kukunoor’s last film Laxmi highlighted the plight of young girls forced into prostitution in Hyderabad. His film Dhanak, being made in Marathi, hopes to support the noble cause of eye donation. Even though Shah Rukh Khan’s role in the film is now known, buzz is that he will be playing himself in the film and will endorse the noble cause of eye donation.
Dhanak tells the story of the deep bond that an older sister shares with her blind, younger brother and how she works towards restoring his eyesight before he turns nine.
Dhanak which means a ‘rainbow’ in Rajasthani language is reportedly a remake of the Iranian film Besak. Even though the film’s title is Dhanak, it will be called as Rainbow overseas.
SRK is currently busy promoting his upcoming movie Happy New Year, directed by Farah Khan which is slated for Diwali release this year.
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.
