Hindi
Director Mangesh Hadawale turns creative producer for ‘Tapaal’
MUMBAI: National Award winning director and script writer Mangesh Hadawale, known for films like Tingya and Dekh Indian Circus adds another feather to his hat. He is now turning into a creative producer for the Marathi movie Tapaal.
To be directed by cinematographer turned director Laxman Utekar, Tapaal stars Nandu Madhav, Veena Jamkar, Milind Gunaji, Urmila Kanetkar and Rohit Utekar.
Talking about his association with Hadawale, Utekar said, “I thought about making a Marathi film long back. When I was shooting as a cinematographer for Dekh Indian Circus, I discussed about it with Mangesh and asked him to write a nice story for me. He wrote a beautiful story and that is how Tapaal started.”
Talking about what instigated him to turn to a creative producer, Hadawale reveals, “When the film was still at the scripting stage, I made Maitreya Mass Media hear the script which they loved and decided that it would be great if Laxman directs it, keeping his cinematography background in mind. They needed a reliable person to know the process of production and that is why I came in as a creative producer. But in true sense, it was Anant Bhuwad, the executive producer of the film, who has contributed. I have just taken care of location, shoot, permissions etc. But the execution in real sense was done smoothly by Anant Bhuwad.”
The newly turned creative producer not only helped in creative aspect for the movie but also guided him in roping a stellar cast for his debut film.
“Mangesh knew many actors from the Marathi industry. We had various aspects in mind while we were characterizing and he showed me various options for different characters. When I saw Nandu Madhav’s photograph, I could picturise him as the postman. Similarly, for Veena’s character, we had to look for an actress who could look motherly and would have been able to emote nicely. Keeping that in mind we casted her,” added Utekar.
Produced by Maitreya Mass Media and distributed by Pickle Entertainment, Tapaal is slated to release on 26 September 2014.
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.
