Hindi
Citylight Cinema to open in new avatar after 7 years
MUMBAI: Citylight cinema, which was once the loved cinema hall for people around Shivaji Park Matunga and Mahim areas in Mumbai, is all set to open to the public after a seven-year hiatus in a refurbished look with the Anil Kapoor and Ajay Devgn-starrer Tezz.
The old 750-seater theatre has made way for a single screen 250-seater theatre. The new avatar of the cinema hall will have enhanced Dolby surround sound system, UFO satellite transmission, plush seating,
ample parking space and all the other frills that multiplexes offer such as a food court.
The cinema hall, which opened in 1942, used to screen classics such as Baiju Bawra and Anarkali. In the later years, filmmakers including the Barjatyas considered the theatre lucky for premiering their films.
Their blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Kaun ran at the theatre for 33 weeks here.
In its heydays the theatre would attract cinema lovers from the entire Mahim-Matunga-Dadar area. But in the first decade of the new millennium, the cinema hall lost its patronage to the frills that multiplexes offer. The single-screen theatre finally shut down in 2005.
It was sold by Kishan Panjabi, who inherited it from his father Narayandas, to builder Shyamjibhai Gogri, who redeveloped the property. While commercial offices were set up on the ground, first, second and third floors, the fourth and fifth levels were kept for the new Citylight cinema.
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.
