Hindi
Bollywood actors take on cricketers in football for charity
NEW DELHI: Demonstrating their care for fellow Indians, film personalities led by Abhishek Bachchan took on a team of cricketers led by Virat Kohli in a charity football match at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in a charity football match at New Delhi over the weekend.
The All Heart Team of cricketers emerged victorious by 4-3 on Saturday night against the All Star team.
The funds raised from the match went to the Magic Bus foundation, which works for underprivileged children. Virat Kohli launched the team for his foundation ‘All Heart Football Club‘ against the All Stars Football Club.
The All Stars team was coached by former footballer Bhaichung Bhutia and Sunil Chettri trained the All Heart Team.
Manoj Tiwari who scored two very important goals for his team was awarded man of the match.
"Indian cricketers are in a habit of winning matches with a scoreline of 4-0. We were scared we would get the same treatment, but all credit to our team especially Ranbir Kapoor for having fought so brilliantly against the cricketers," said Bachchan at the press conference after the match.
Talking about the team composition, vice-captain Ranbir Kapoor who was disappointed at having missed the penalty said they had been practising for over six months for the match.
"Everyone who was regularly practising with us today was given a chance to play. There is nothing to be ashamed of in losing 4-3 and it was an honour to step up and compete against the mighty cricketers," he said.
Talking about the prospect of arranging a revenge match, Abhishek said a few games were in the pipeline with talks doing the rounds that the two teams will square up again in Sikkim for Bhaichung Bhutia‘s foundation.
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.
