Hindi
Barring ‘Sultan’, dull weekend at box office
MUMBAI: While the recent films since the release of Sultan have been bad for the trade, especially the exhibition trade which needs a flow of crowd pulling films to sustain, the next week promises to be full of hope. Two major films releasing simultaneously has been avoided by the trade as both would eat into each other’s business prospects. But, the exhibitors never had it so good as Mohenjo Daro and Rustom face each other this Friday.
Budhia Singh-Born To Run, a National Award winner for the Best Children’s film, wins much critical acclaim, but no footfalls. The film could manage only Rs. 1.2 crore in its first weekend.
Fever, an attempt to make a polished thriller, turns out anything but that. It is a badly scripted film concentrating more on steamy scenes rather than thrill and suspense. A good musical score as well as captivating cinematography are wasted in absence of substance. The film collected Rs. 55 lakh in its opening weekend.
The Legend Of Michael Mishra meets with a disastrous fate at the box office. To think of Arsad Warsi essaying a teenage romance in itself is a put off and to expect the film to draw audience is rather ambitious! There is nothing in the script or direction or music to salvage the film to any extent. The collections have been poor as the film could collect only Rs. 60 lakh in its first weekend.
Dishoom, an action thriller with a youth favourite. Varun Dhawan, providing the entertainment quotient, does well. The film had its flows and routine second half but managed to make the most of the absence of any decent entertainer for a while.
The film collects 51.8 crore in its first week. With poor opposition in its second week, the film stands a fair chance of adding another Rs. 16 to 17 crore in its second week for a decent lifetime business.
Love Ke Funday and Murder Madhuri make it to the total loss category.
Madaari…Sshhh Desh So Raha Hai collects Rs. 2.75 crore in its second week to take its two week tally to Rs. 15.45 crore.
Kabaali (Hindi-dubbed from Tamil) drops drastically in its second week taking its two week total to Rs. 24.9 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.
