Hindi
Ormax Media study ranks Singham top favourite in 2011
MUMBAI: The Rohit Shetty directed Singham is the top favourite film of Bollywood audiences in 2011 while the Zoya Akhtar film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and the Imtiaz Ali directed Rockstar take the next two positions respectively, according to a recent study.
The next three positions are occupied by Salman Khan’s Ready and Bodyguard just a notch ahead of Shah Rukh Khan’s Don 2, according to Ormax Media’s consumer-based yearend report titled ‘Front Page 2011’.
The latter half of the chart consists of more experimental films that lacked a big star. In particular, No One Killed Jessica performs creditably at No. 7. It is the only film in this list that had an opening weekend of less than Rs 150 million and yet found appreciation on the strength of its content.
Commenting on the results, Ormax Media CEO Shailesh Kapoor said, “There are various award shows that give away Best Film awards. However, this ranking is based on structured consumer data from more than 32,000 cinegoers across India. There can’t be a bigger award than this!”
The ranking of the top ten favourite Bollywood films of 2011 was derived on the basis the ‘Word of Mouth’ (WOM) score of the film, using data collected through consumer research throughout the year. The WOM score represents the percentage of audiences who liked the film enough to recommend it strongly to their friends.
While box office business is heavily influenced by the opening weekend of a film, the WOM score reflects the audience feedback on the content alone, irrespective of the marketing or the distribution of the film.
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.
