Hindi
Fan fans a disastrous box office week
MUMBAI: This has been a disastrous week at the box office with exhibitors taking a big hit. This comes soon after the setback as they were made to pay high MGs and advances for Fan which they could not recoup. The three small time films released this week, Laal Rang, Nil Battey Sannata and Santa Banta Pvt Ltd have been rejected outright with their collections limited to a few lakhs each day of their opening weekend. Sadly for the exhibitors, they have nothing to curtail the shows of these films, as is done usually, with other films such as Jungle Book has. Fan is in its third week and limited footfalls, would have no takers anymore, since its collections went only downhill from the fourth day onwards.
Nil Battey Sannata had a title that went over one’s head, these titles fail to tell a prospective viewer what is in the offing. The film has merit and was also exempted from paying entertainment tax in Delhi and UP state. If other states also grant it exemption, as it deserves to, it will be too late to help the film. The film could not put together even Rs one crore for its opening weekend.
The makers may, however, take solace from the fact that, having been shot entirely in UP, this low budget film’s investment would be assured from the subsidy scheme of the UP government.
Laal Rang drew a few hundred more footfalls over others due to Randeep Hooda in the lead, yet remained in the Rs one crore range over the weekend. Hooda does not yet enjoy the status to assure a multi crore opener.
Santa Banta Pvt Ltd may well be the frontrunner for the status of the year’s worst, amateurish and juvenile film. To add to its problems, the film was withdrawn from many cinema halls due to the Sikh community protesting against defamatory and derogatory projection of the community.
The Jungle Book continued to do roaring business. The film has added an impressive Rs 46.8 core in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 120.8 crore. The trend for the third week is steady.
Fan, which had a reasonable opening on day one, it being a national holiday, started dropping from day two and three, failing to add the weekend audience. However, the drop from Monday onwards for rest of the four days was rather steep. The film could add about 30 per cent for the next four days to its three day opening weekend collections to end its first week with Rs 71.5 crore with the second weekend adding another Rs 7.75 crore.
KI & Ka added Rs 1.45 crore. The film’s three week tally stands at Rs 50.65 crore.
Kapoor & Sons collected Rs 20 lakh in its fifth week, taking its five week total to Rs 72.1 crore.
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.
