Hindi
Tamil actor Raghuvaran passes away at 59
MUMBAI: Tamil actor Raghuvaran, who essayed varied roles, died at a private hospital this morning in Chennai of cardiac arrest.
The actor was 59 and is survived by his divorced wife and former actor Rohini and a son.
Raghuvaran, who had been suffering from diabetes and other complications, was rushed to a private hospital this morning, where he collapsed. His family members were at the bedside when the end came around 8:30 am.
The body was later shifted to his residence at T Nagar where the Tamil film world paid their last respects.
Nadigar Sangam president Sarathkumar, his wife Radhika, Satyaraj, Radha Ravi, Thalai Vasal Vijay, comedian Vivek and several others placed a wreath on the body and paid their homage.
Raghuvaran had acted in several Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi films, and has been praised as a natural actor. His mortal remains would be consigned to flames this evening.
He became famous with his role as the protagonist of a Tamil soap opera Oru Manidhanin Kadhai, the story about a well-to-do man who becomes an alcoholic and faces the consequent difficulties.
Raghuvaran, who had taken a sabbatical from active films due to ill health, made a comeback last year in the film Sivapathigaram and later acted in a number of big films including Rajnikanth‘s blockbuster Sivaji – The Boss. His last films were Sila Nerangalil and Bheema, which were released recently.
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.
