Hindi
Box Office: ‘Ghayal Once Again’ opens to tepid response; ‘Airlift’ collects Rs 111.3 crore
MUMBAI: Sunny Deol’s home production and directorial venture Ghayal Once Again tries to cash in on his 1990’s success, Ghayal and has opened to a tepid response at the box office. The film failed to catch momentum on Saturday, showing only a slight improvement on Sunday. Ghayal Once Again ended its opening weekend with Rs 21.2 crore.
On the other hand, the Akshay Kumar starrer Airlift made the most of its perfect release period around 26 January, the Indian Republic Day, which helped its theme of patriotism. Despite being a dry theme with a documentary like feel through its first half, the film scored in its latter parts to pick up through the weekend and also thereafter. The film added a respectable Rs 28.5 crore in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 111.3 crore.
Sanam Teri Kasam, an old-fashioned mishmash of previous love stories with cancer as the theme, suffers on many counts including being slow, depressing, clichéd lack of face value and so on. The film did not even make it to the one crore mark on its opening day. It improved a bit on Saturday and Sunday, both on the lower side and not enough to salvage the enterprise. The film collected Rs 3.8 crore in its opening weekend.
Saala Khadoos pays the price for two reasons, being a sports film and being a very predictable one at that about an underdog, out of nowhere girl winning the boxing world championship. Except love stories, selling dreams is no more wise. Even Mary Kom, based on a real life champ, catered to a limited audience. The R Madhavan starrer Saala Khadoos managed to collect Rs 8.2 crore in its first week.
Mastizaade shows that senseless vulgarity in the name of sex comedy does not work. With dud performers, the film tried to attract audience only on the anatomy of Sunny Leone and this is not her first film! The film got a low weekend and failed to add much in the rest of the days, ending its first week with Rs 17.65 crore at the box office.
Kyaa Kool Hain Hum, a senseless sex comedy comes a cropper and fails badly. The film added about Rs 50 lakh in its second week to take its two week as well as lifetime business to a mere Rs 26.8 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.
