Hindi
Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor most searched emerging stars online
BENGALURU: India’s crazy love for Bollywood stars, movies, and songs is a celebrated and known fact. With the entry of fresh talent and dynamic performances over the last year, Bollywood buffs across the country have been extending their support to the stars of tomorrow. While some are new to film fraternity, the others hail from filmy homes and have grown up in Bollywood.
Starry kids including the likes of Alia Bhatt, Shraddha Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and Tiger Shroff are leading searches on Google. Although filmy background gives them a clear edge, the other non-filmy newbies on screen including Sidhartha Malhotra and Ileana D’cruz have made their way to fans’ hearts with their performances and talent.
An analysis of recent searches on Google (Google Search trends) takes a look at the popularity of these stars among the fans online.
Alia Bhatt’s dream launch in Student of the Year followed by blockbuster movies including Highway and Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania has gained a lot of interest online as she leads search interest among fans for emerging stars.
Aashiqui 2 fame Shraddha Kapoor with her compelling performance in Ek Villian has also grabbed continuous attention from fans online. Interestingly their standing remains too close as the two continue to work hard to maintain their fast growing fan base. Among those with no starry backgrounds, Ileana D’Cruz stood out of the crowd with high interest witnessed online.
Among the male stars, Arjun Kapoor is the latest on the block attracting huge search interest online. While he made his debut in 2012 with Isaqzaade, he took on the spotlight with his blockbuster hit 2 States this year.
Sidhartha Malhothra’s journey with his charming performance in Student of the Year & Hasee Toh Phasee to the thrilling Ek Villian has been followed closely by his fans. The actor has shown steady and charismatic performances that are driving searches online.
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.
