Hindi
Ra.One named Worst film, Imran Khan & Deepika Padukone get worst actor awards
NEW DELHI: ‘Ra. One’, one of the most expensive films in Bollywood, has been voted the worst film of 2011 and its director Anubhav Sinha has been named worst director.
In an event held on All Fools Day, Imran Khan and Deepika Padukone received the notorious worst actor awards for ‘Mere Brother ki Dulhan’ and ‘Aarakshan’ respectively in the fourth annual Golden Kela awards which marked the culmination of the first-ever Comedy Festival held in the capital.
Jatin Verma, head of Twenty Onwards Media which organises the annual event on the lines of the Golden Raspberry Awards given in Hollywood every year, said a total of around 700,000 votes were received for the awards. The programme was presented by Anant Singh.
Pratiek Babbar – son of Raj Babbar and the late Smita Patil – was named worst supporting actor for ‘Dum Maaro Dum’ and ‘Aarakshan’, while Chirag Paswan was named the worst debutante for ‘Miley Na Miley Hum’.
The veteran Pankaj Kapoor won the ‘Bawra Ho Gaya Kay’ award for the film ‘Mausam’, while the film ‘Pyar ka Panchnama’ was named for the Shakti kapoor award for misogyny (which literally means “man’s hatred for women”).
One of the most interesting awards was for the music director Preetam, who won the ‘Bas kijiye bahaut ho gaya’ award for freely copying tunes from different countries for his songs. Around 20 songs composed by him were played along with the originals, which showed he had taken tunes from music as far away as the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America, and even based on songs tuned some years earlier by Anu Malik. In fact, the songs played included one copied by Preetam on one of his own tunes that came a few years earlier.
The lyrics named as the Most Irritating Song was ‘Teri Meri’ from the Salman Khan-Kareen Kapoor starrer ‘Bodyguard’.
Ironically. Amitabh Bhattacharyya who won the National Award for best lyrics for penning the song ‘Agar zindagi’ in the film ‘I Am…’ was named for the Most Atrocious Lyrics – ‘Pyar Do Pyar Lo’ (‘Thank You’), ‘Jigar ka Tukda’ (‘Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl’), and the Mutton Song (‘Luv ka the End’).
The ‘Aaja Nach Le Award’ for Worst Attempt at Comeback was given to Esha Deol for ‘Tell me O Kkhuda’, while the Lajja Award for the Worst treatment of a serious issue was given to Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan’. The F.A.L.T.U award for most aptly named film went to ‘F.A.L.T.U’.
Interestingly, filmmaker Kanti Shah was present personally to receive a Platinum Kela special award excellence in cinema. He has been making B-Grade movies over the past two decades, but the organizers said he had always given the audiences what they wanted. “I‘m feeling good at being invited at the event. It’s special because it has been organised by true fans of my style of movie-making. I have been to other award shows as well, but this definitely is special being solely driven by fans of my movies,” said Shah.
Best known for the cult film ‘Gunda’ in 1998 (Starring Mithun Da!) and such classics as Loha, Duplicate Sholay, Shaadi Basanti ki Honeymoon Gabbar ka, and Sheela Ki Jawani, Kanti Shah is perhaps the only director worthy of the title ‘So Bad It’s Good’.
Also present was Arunoday Singh, who accepted the Anti-Kela award on behalf of the team of Yeh Saali Zindagi. The Trophy was presented to him by last year’s winner, Abhishek Sharma (Director, Tere Bin Laden). “I think Sudhir Mishra should be the one accepting this. I‘m quite honoured and amused to accept this award. It is good to see this movie getting some recognition. And you guys obviously have a great choice,” Singh said.
Other recipients of the Anti-Kela award were ‘Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster’,’ Shaitan’ and ‘Shor in the City’, who managed to please the Kela Committee.
The Golden Kela awards came at the end of the Comedy Festival during which iconic comedy films like ‘Jaane bhi do yaaro’, ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ and ‘Tere Bin Laden’ were screened.
There was a competition on Standup Comedy as part of the Indian Comedy Festival for the ‘Comedy Central’ TV channel and Maheep Singh and Zakir Khan shared the top prize of Rs 1,00,000 along with the chance to be featured on Comedy Central.
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.
