Hindi
Box Office: ‘Katti Batti’ takes poor opening with Rs 15.5 crore
MUMBAI: It all started with Hollywood film, Love Story (1970) based on a bestseller novel of same name by Erich Segal about a couple madly in love only to realise one of them is terminally ill. The Rajshris followed it up with its Indian version in the musical hit, Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se (1978) while Hrishikesh Mukerjee used the theme again, albeit, with no similarities with the two in Anand (1981), which went on to become an all-time classic. Since then, quite a few attempts have been made to use a terminal illness and, except Kal Ho Na Ho in (2003), none seem to have worked.
Katti Batti takes this theme and brutalises it badly. And, pays for it at both, the media as well as the box office. Besides poor merits, the film cuts corners heavily on supporting star cast. Having taken a poor opening, the film could not better its Friday collections on Saturday or on Sunday. All the film had to show for its opening weekend is Rs 15.5 crore.
Meeruthiya Gangsters fails to find an audience.
Hero, an attempt to recreate the magic of the 1983 musical hit of the same name, proves disastrous. After a low opening weekend, the film closes its first week with Rs 29.2 crore not being able to sustain during the week days.
Welcome Back did reasonable business in its first week but started losing steam thereafter despite poor new releases to affect its business. The film managed to add about 25 per cent of its first week total collecting Rs 17.5 crore in second week to take its two week total to Rs 90.6 crore.
Phantom emerges a loser at the box office managing to add just about Rs 60 lakh in its third week to take its three week tally to Rs 50.5 crore.
Manjhi: The Mountain Man collects Rs 18 lakh in its fourth week to take its four week total to Rs 12.88 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.
