Hindi
Box Office: Jolly LLB benefits from weak releases
MUMBAI: Bipasha Basu and Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer horror movie Aatma collected Rs 51 million over its opening weekend. There is expected to be a massive drop in collections from today as the Hindi belt is immersed in the Holi mood already.
Jackky Bhagnani’s south Indian remake Rangrezz has been rejected as the first weekend collections show. The film has managed to collect just Rs 34 million.
Makrand Deshpande’s directorial venture starring Naseeruddin Shah Sona Spa found no takers.
Jolly LLB made the most of its open run and its stars whose presence usually promises fun. It benefitted in its second weekend due to poor oppositions and collected Rs 52 million over the week. The film netted Rs 187.5 million from its 10-day run.
Mere Dad Ki Maruti sustained in some parts, doing better in the North. It collected Rs 81.2 million in its first week.
3G collected Rs 55 million in its first week.
Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster dropped drastically in its second week to collect Rs 29 million. It has netted Rs 207 million in 17 days.
Ram Gopal Verma’s The Attacks of 26/11 collected Rs seven million in its third week taking its total to Rs 139 million.
Abhishek Kapoor’s Kai Po Che collected Rs 18 million in its fourth week to take its tally to Rs 475 million.
Special 26 collected Rs five million in its sixth week to take its total to Rs 703.5 million.
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.
