Hindi
‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’ is on its way to becoming a hit
The time period for the release of Badrinath Ki Dulhania was dicey to say the least. The film was released bang in the middle of days of election results in the most politically volatile states of the North India, board exams and the pre-Holi Friday. Also, cinema halls are closed till mid-noon on Holi day and one or two shows are cancelled across most cinemas.
Being a youth-oriented musical romance, the film could have drawn and deserved a better opening response over the weekend. The film did have a sagging second half till it picks up later towards the end. But, the young pair of Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt had a great chemistry going, and the film sustained all the onslaughts best as it could.
Badrinath Ki Dulhania opened on Friday with about Rs 12 crore, improving a little by little over Saturday and Sunday. Being the solo release and an entertainer helped. The film collected Rs 54.7 crore in its extended weekend of four days.
*Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai has managed a poor Rs 20 lakh in its first week.
*Commando 2, a forced sequel, had nothing to offer except action by Vidyut Jammwal. He may be an ace martial arts exponent but how many times can one watch the same person doing same action sequences? What people prefer is stunts and that, just about every hero seems to be doing, thanks to special effects.
The film, which did Rs 14.6 crore business during its first three days, managed to add little over seven crore for rest of the four days to close its first week with Rs 21.8 crore.
*Rangoon adds to its misery as the film dropped Rs 19.1 crore in first week to Rs 65 lakh in its second week. The film takes its two week tally to Rs 19.75 crore which, for all practical purposes, is the film’s lifetime business.
*The Attack On Ghazi continued to add bit by bit to the collections. The film collected Rs 2.5 crore in its third week to take its three week tally to Rs 17.95 crore.
*Jolly LLB has collected Rs 2.4 crore in its fourth week to take its four week total to Rs 106.2 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.
