Hindi
Rajkumar Hirani wins Award for Entertainment
MUMBAI: At the 7th Annual Teacher’s Achievement Awards, Bollywood director Raj Kumar Hirani won the achievement award in the Entertainment category.
Mahesh Dattani received the award in the communication category for theatre. The achievement award in the Business category was bagged by Chanda Kochar of ICICI Bank. Manavjit Singh Sandhu won the award in the Sports category and K V Kamath was honoured with the lifetime achievement award.
The ceremony was held at the Taj Land’s End in Mumbai and was attended by film, corporate, sports and communication personalities.
On receiving the award Hirani said, “Thank you Teachers and the jury for scaring me. All the work I’m going to do now has to live up to the expectation of Munnabhai. I accept in all humility this award.”
Kochar said, “It is an honor to achieve the award. Normally award categories for Businessmen and women are separate. Those days are fast changing; we should now select a Business Leader just the way Teacher’s has done.”
“We Sportsmen don’t usually get to rest our laurels a lot as our coaches constantly push us back to our game. Thanks to Teacher’s I am going to rest on my laurels for at least tonight.” said Sandhu.
Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Milkha Singh, Sabira Merchant, Atul Kasbekar, Prahlad Kakar, Harsh Mariwala, Subir Raha, SM Dutta, Anjali Bhagwat, Pooja Bedi, Piyush Mishra, Nadira Babbar, Naraini Shastri, Prasoon Joshi and Gaurav Chopra attended the function.
Welcoming the guests, Rupert Patrick, Managing Director–Duty Free and Developing Market business, Beam Global Spirits & Wine said, “The Teacher’s Achievement Awards has consistently rewarded achievers over the years and motivated others towards excellence. At this 7th edition of the Teacher’s Achievement Awards, we are glad to recognize distinguished achievers from across fields.”
Harish Moolchandani, CEO & Managing Director, India and Indian Sub Continent, Beam Global Spirits & Wine, India Business said, “Selecting a winner from amongst the nominees was a difficult task according to the jury, since each one is a winner in his/her right. We are confident that keeping the spirit of Teachers Achievement Awards, the winners shall continue to excel and inspire. The awards shall carry on with recognizing spirited performers and promoting excellence as a part of the endeavor.”
The ceremony was hosted by actor Pooja Bedi. The event began with a dance performance by Nritarutya, a group of young dancers who were from disparate dance and martial art backgrounds which includes Bharatnatyam, Odissi, Kathak, Contemporary Technique, Kalaripayattu and Taekwondo. The troupe showcased a brilliant performance inspired by power, drive and achievement that mesmerized and captivated the audience.
The grand finale of the award ceremony was a musical tribute to some of the great musicians of the world by Niladari Kumar and his group. They paid homage to some of the famous and celebrated icons like Ustad Zakir Hussain, Guns N’ Roses, Jimmy Hendrix, Pandit Ravi Shankar, on the Zitar – an amalgamation of a sitar and a guitar.
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.
