Hindi
Indian box office lost more than Rs 15,000 cr in 2020-21: Ormax Media
Mumbai: The Indian box office lost more than Rs 15,000 crore to the pandemic in the year 2020 and 2021, according to Ormax Media’s ‘The Ormax Box Office Report 2020-21’ released on Monday. The report looks at the Indian box office across languages, highlighting key trends in the theatrical sector. Because of theatres being shut for several months during the pandemic, Ormax Media has released a combined edition for the two pandemic-impacted years (2020 and 2021).
Footfalls came down from 103.0 crore in 2019 to 22.5 crore and 42.7 crore in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Among other findings, the Telugu language industry commanded a maximum share at the box office at 29 per cent. Hindi’s share fell from 44 per cent to 27 per cent.
Compared to the gross box office of almost Rs 11,000 crore in 2019, the cumulative revenue across 2020 and 2021 put together stood at only Rs 5,757 crore (an annual average of less than Rs 2,900 crore). If 2019 is taken as the benchmark, the Indian film industry lost at least Rs 15,000 crore at the box office because of the pandemic.
“The pandemic has severely impacted the Indian box office, with five out of the eight quarters in 2020 and 2021 having zero or negligible business because of theatres being shut in all or most parts of India,” said Ormax Media founder and CEO Shailesh Kapoor. “The good news is that the last quarter of 2021 (Oct-Dec) saw an excellent recovery, registering gross box office of more than Rs 2,000 crore, which reaffirms that the theatrical business is very much here to say.”
The pandemic years also saw significant changes in the share of different language industries within the Indian film industry. With 29 per cent share of the box office (2020 and 2021 cumulative), the Telugu language industry took the top position, ahead of Hindi, whose share declined from 44 per cent to 27 per cent.
Four Telugu films (“Pushpa,” “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo,” “Sarileru Neekevvaru,” and “Vakeel Saab”) feature in the top 10 films across the two years, compared to only three Hindi films (“Tanhaji,” “Sooryavanshi” and “83”). “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (Hollywood), “Master” and “Darbar” (both Tamil) complete the top 10 list.
Speaking about Southern languages’ growing share of box office partner – Ormax Media Gautam Jain stated, “The cumulative share of the four South languages went up from 36 per cent in 2019 to 59 per cent in 2020 & 2021, highlighting how these industries managed to navigate through the pandemic with more relative success than Hindi films. While we can expect Hindi cinema to stage a recovery in 2022, the rise of South cinema is a story to watch out for.”
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.
