Hindi
Ananth Mahadevan to adapt short story of Satyajit Ray
MUMBAI: In his zest to pay a tribute to Satyajit Ray, actor-director Ananth Mahadevan has decided to adapt a short story Golpo Boliye Tarini Khuro of the master filmmaker.
Golpo Boliye Tarini Khuro follows the sojourn of a man, who after retirement, looking to keep himself engaged, is invited to be a storyteller of a rich businessman. It is a piquant situation he finds himself in. Thereafter, Ray springs two magnificent surprises in the narrative, quips Mahadevan. The director has thought of Amitabh Bachchan to reprise the role of the retired person.
Talking about the story, Mahadevan observes, “A writer friend of mine Tapobrati Das Sammaddar approached with me with the story. It set my adrenaline pumping. A tribute to Ray was a rare opportunity and after hearing the charming story he had penned, I wrote to Sandip Ray for permissions hoping that he wouldn‘t have any reservations.”
After all, it‘s better to keep the master‘s story confined within the pages of a book rather than let it turn into a wrongly made film, he felt. “But I guess my track record of 4 National awards and my penchant for challenging subjects turned the tide in my favour. Sandip was prompt and gracious in giving me the requisite permission,” Mahadevan avered.
Mahadevan has already written to Amitabh Bachchan. “I am waiting for Mr Bachchan to revert,” the filmmaker maintained. Right now, he is working on the rest of the cast and crew.
The film will be christened The Storyteller.
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.
