Hindi
Ajai Sinha film stopped from screening in Haryana, Punjab
MUMBAI: Ajai Sinha‘s film on honour killing Khap–A Story of Honour Killing was banned in theatres across Punjab and Haryana while the Khaps in Uttar Pradesh have called for a ban on the film with immediate effect.
In Haryana, the film could not get a proper release, having opened for limited screening in three cities while the rest of Haryana‘s exhibitors stayed away from the film for fear of retaliation from sections of Haryana‘s protestors. The current situation is that all the theatres in Punjab and Haryana have boycotted the film.
Meanwhile, following their brethren in Haryana and Punjab, heads of various Khap councils in Uttar Pradesh have threatened to start an agitation if Ajai Sinha‘s Khap–A Story of Honour Killing is not banned.
Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and Baliyan khap leader Naresh Tikait alleges that the film is a ‘conspiracy to dishonour‘ the Khaps and follows it up by demanding that the film be banned. Such a film would be harmful to brother and sister relations, he observed.
Har Kishan Malic, the head of Gadwala khap, and the leader of Battisa khap Choudhry Suraj Mal have also opposed the film and threatened to launch an agitation. The film that deals with ‘honour‘ killings generated a controversy with members of the BKU that resulted in forcing a cinema hall to stop screening the film.
Khap-A story of honour killing revolves around two different worlds colliding each other over a love story which we take as a norm in our world.
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.
