Hindi
Saregama to release Karma Aur Holi on 6 March
MUMBAI: Saregama India will be releasing the Bollywood-Hollywood jointly produced film, Karma Aur Holi, on 6 March.
Says Saregama India head-Acquisition Distribution and New film Projects Sharang Sharma, “We are confident that the movie will be liked by classes and masses as well, and we intend to go in for platform release strategy and will increase the print count as the movie builds up.”
Written and directed by New York based Manish Gupta, the film has been co-produced by Drena DeNiro, daughter of actor Robert DeNiro.
The film marks the return of Sushmita Sen after a long hiatus and also stars Randeep Hooda, Rati Agnihotri, Suresh Oberoi, Deepal Shaw and international model Naomi Campbell, rapper Sticky Fingaz and Vincent Pannetta.
The film deals with relationships of many dimensions, their conflicts and resolutions, all happening on the day of Holi signifying a new beginning. The story revolves around the identity of Indian families living in the United States, having migrated from their native land, adapting to the difference in culture and how they have been ready to give up their inherent cultural inhibitions.
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.
