Hindi
James Bond debuts on DVD in India
MUMBAI: Excel Home Videos has made a ‘bond‘ with Ian Fleming‘s suave and charming secret agent.It is releasing James Bond movies on DVD for the first time in India.
The 2 disc DVDs released by Excel Home Videos include all 20 bond titles from Dr No to Die Another Day.
The DVD 2 disc edition priced at Rs 599 is available in all leading bookstores across the country.
Says Excel Home Videos MD M N Kapasi, “This is for the first time that any Bond Movie will be releasing on DVD in India.”
The offering chronicles the various actors including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, who have played Bond over the decades with their introduction and interview. “The DVDs will be a treat for all Bond loyalists with scores of other extra-features,” Kapasi said.
The extra features also include making of the film, theatrical archives, video and pictures of exotic locales, image database of all the characters of the movie, TV broadcast and director‘s commentary among others.
The movies include Dr.No, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia With Love, You Only Live Twice For Your Eyes Only, On Her Majesty‘s Secret Service, A View To A Kill, Goldfinger, Goldeneye, Thunder Ball, License To Kill, Live And Let Die, Octopussy, Die Another Day, Moonraker, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
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.
