Hindi
BO: A bad start to 2014
MUMBA: It has been a dull scene at the box office windows all over as even the Salman Khan film, Jai Ho, has behaved way below expectations. The single screens were made to pay high MGs (the demand was “More than MGs paid for Dhoom3!). All stand to lose 50 to 60% of the MGs paid. They had a happy ending to year 2013 with Dhoom3 but have had a bad start to 2014. Also, there is no major film in sight in near future to rest their hopes on.
Salman Khan’s sermonising fare, Jai Ho, has not been able to draw crowds from day one. The audience seems to have a strong antenna about their choice and infer a lot from the publicity campaigns of a particular film. The film had a weak Friday and a Saturday which saw a drop instead of a rise in collections. The only saving grace were the Sunday collections which jumped by about 40% over its opening day figures. With an opening weekend of 57.2 crore, the film has not even managed to cross the mandatory 100 crore mark in its first week which is expected of any major star. The film ended its first week with 82.1 crore. It may just about manage to cross the 100 crore mark which still makes it a loser.
The solo release of the week, One By Two is a rank bad film and faced the consequences for being so. Lacking any story worth telling and a coherent script backed by poor handling, it failed to attract even a small fraternity of Abhay Deol fans. At many screens, there was ‘No audience, no show’ status. The film collected 1.4 crore for its first weekend.
Yaariyan, its mediocre content notwithstanding, has made its money. Having collected 32.05 crore in its first two weeks, the film has added another crore to its tally, taking its total to 33.05 crore.
Dedh Ishqiya has run out of steam by its third week. Adding just 80 lakh for its third week, the film’s three week take is 25.4 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.
