Hindi
After Priyanka, Sonam roped in for a biopic
MUMBAI: After the success of Farhan Akhtar’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and Priyanka Chopra’s Mary Kom, and Irrfan Khan’s Paan Singh Tomar, Sonam Kapoor seems to be the next in line.
As biopics seem to be trending in bollywood, buzz is that the fiery actress is going to play the legendry Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil on big screen. The film would revolve around Amrita’s life, love, friends and mentors.
Born in 1913 to a Punjabi-Sikh father and a Hungarian-Jewish mother, Amrita Sher-Gil was a pre-independence painter and one of the most prolific female painters of the pre-Independence era. Referred to as the ‘Frida Kahlo of India’, the legendary painter lived in France and India and died in 1941. The actress is in talk with the painter’s family for the same.
Sonam Kapoor is currently busy promoting her latest project Khoobsurat with co-star Fawad Khan. The movie also stars veteran actresses Ratna Pathak Shah and Kirron Kher in lead.
Set in Rajasthan, Khoobsurat is the story of Dr. Mili Chakravarty (Sonam Kapoor)- a middle class physiotherapist from Delhi. Mili is sent to Rajasthan to treat the paraplegic Shekhar Rathore, Raja of Sambalgarh. Over the course of her stay in the mahal, Mili charms the Rathore family, especially young Vikram Singh Rathore- with her free spirit and funny antics.
The film, which is a remake of Hrishikesh Mukerjee’s 1980 hit film of similar name starring Rekha is directed by Shashanka Ghosh and is slated to hit the silver screens on 19 September.
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.
