Hindi
‘2 States’ sizzles at box office
MUMBAI: 2 States, a youth oriented love story with all the traditional Indian ingredients packaged to contemporary tastes, took off with flying colours, the opening day being to near full houses at the multiplexes.
The film maintained well on Saturday and peaked on Sunday as expected. The film collected Rs 37.6 crore for its opening weekend.
Bhootnath Returns, which opened to weak collections on Friday, improved on Saturday and Sunday only to lose the momentum as the week progressed. After a weekend of Rs 18.2 crore, the film could add only Rs 10.1 crore over other four days to show Rs 28.1 crore at the end of its first week.
Main Tera Hero sustained well in its second week to collect Rs 12.55 crore taking its two week total to Rs 48.75 crore.
Ragini MMS 2 has added a symbolic Rs 20 lakh in its fourth week taking its four week total to Rs 47.05 crore.
Queen reaches the end of its glorious run by adding another Rs 1.05 crore for its sixth week and taking its six week total to Rs 57.5 crore.
The success of Queen has made the forthcoming Kangna Ranaut starrer Revolver Rani, a movie to look forward to in the film trade and also with the audience. On this count, the exhibitors expect more from this film than the other two releases slated for 25 April, Samrat & Co. and Kaanchi.
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.
