Hindi
A boring week for box office
MUMBAI: Shaukeens, the remake of 1982 Basu Chatterjee film, Shaukeen, starring old stalwarts Ashok Kumar, Utpal Dutt and AK Hangal is below the mark. The three characters being re-enacted by Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor and Piyush Mishra are no patch on the veterans they replace. Plus, the script has been mutilated badly in an attempt to better it (old classics can’t be bettered). The film opened low despite a weak opposition. And, the film has managed to collect just Rs 13.5 crore for its opening weekend.
Rang Rasiya, an attempt to sell some nudity in the name of an artistic biopic about a celebrated artist Raja Ravi Varma, has not worked. Biopics about known recent heroes don’t work with our audience and this film working was a long shot. The film fares poorly, missing a first day crore by miles and going onto end the weekend with a poor Rs 2.1 crore.
Super Nani fails at the box office. The subject, despite Rekha enacting the protagonist, is outdated and treated badly. The film has managed to collect a meagre Rs 2.75 crore in its first week.
Roar, a rare film on human vs man eater tigers in a game of survival offered some novelty value which was not enough to save it at the box office. Laden with heavy special effects, which costs dearly, the film has managed just Rs 7.85 crore in its first week.
Happy New Year, despite its negative reports, gets the advantage of poor oppositions and does better than merited in its second week. Even while on decline after its opening day, the film manages to collect Rs 32.4 crore in its second week taking its two week total to Rs 162.4 crore.
Haidar has added Rs 10 lakh in its fifth week to take its five week total to Rs 40.5 crore.
Bang Bang has collected Rs 15 lakh in its fifth week to take its five week total to Rs 145.75 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.
