Hindi
Stranded Evelyn boards an overnight train to reach for work on time
MUMBAI: Some Bollywood stars are known to go out of the way to accommodate their producers, sometimes braving risks and weather. We often hear such episodes of professionalism about Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone. Joining the list now is actor Evelyn Sharma, who became popular with Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.
Recently, while she was on her way to shoot for DivyaKhosla Kumar’s Yaariyan in Darjeeling and Sikkim, Evelyn’s flight was rerouted from Bagdogra to Guwahati airport because of a bad storm, leaving her stranded alone with her luggage.
Since the shooting was scheduled for next day, Evelyn decided to take an overnight train from Guwahati to Siliguri to reach her sets on time as she thought it would be a big hassle for any producer to reschedule location shoots.
“Luckily, God sent an angel to help me. The person guided and guarded me throughout the journey – from going to the railway station, arranging for a ticket on a completely booked train, guarding me for 10 hours on the journey, inviting me for lunch in Siliguri and safely dropping me to the car which brought me to the shoot in Sikkim,” revealed Evelyn though concealing the name and gender of this ‘angel’.
“Without the timely help, I would have been lost in Guwahati, as my phone was dead and the flight personnel did not help at all,” she adds.
The entire film crew was impressed with Evelyn’s bravery of taking the train alone at night, just to make sure she reaches on time.
Yaariyan is the directorial debut of T-Series’ head honcho Bhushan Kumar’s wife Divya Khosla Kumar and releases on 31 January next 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.
