Hindi
Indian box office flexes its muscles in Feb 2025 as Chhaava conquers all
MUMBAI: The Indian cinema landscape is witnessing a box office bonanza in early 2025, with February continuing the strong momentum established in January. The domestic box office is flourishing, with projections indicating a cumulative haul of Rs 2,264 crore for 2025 releases thus far—a whopping 39 per cent increase compared to the same period last year, according to the Ormax Media The India Box Office Report for February 2025.
The Hindi epic Chhaava has emerged as the undisputed champion of February, single-handedly contributing a staggering 53 per cent of the month’s total collections. The film has muscled its way into the record books with earnings exceeding Rs 650 crore, cementing its position among the highest-grossing Hindi films of all time.
Only the Hindi language collections have been tallied in this report, as the Telugu version didn’t swagger into theatres until March 2025. The only other film to smash through the Rs 100 crore barrier in February was the Tamil action-thriller Dragon, which has proven to be a surprise package.
The film has outperformed expectations, even eclipsing the collections of the big-budget Tamil spectacle Vidaamuyarchi—proof that audiences still prefer substance over style when parting with their hard-earned cash.
The re-release trend shows no signs of abating, with nostalgic favourite Sanam Teri Kasam and Christopher Nolan’s mind-bender Interstellar both featuring in the top 10 grossers of the month. It seems cinema-goers are just as keen to revisit classics as they are to embrace new narratives.
With Thandel joining the party in February, Telugu cinema now boasts four entries in the list of highest-grossing films of 2025 so far. Hindi and Tamil industries are tied with three films each, suggesting a healthy competitive balance in the Indian film ecosystem.
Thanks largely to Chhaava’s earth-shattering performance, Hindi language films have increased their market share to 45 per cent for January-February 2025, up from 40 per cent for the entire 2024 calendar year.
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.
