Hindi
Ishkq In Paris: Just another love story!
MUMBAI: Inspired by 1995 Hollywood film, Before Sunrise, Ishkq In Paris is an attempt to revive the career of the film’s leading lady as well as the producer, Preity Zinta. The theme is familiar, about two strangers meeting up while travelling, spending some time together and falling in love. The idea in itself was not bad, really. It could have been made into a cute romantic movie had it been made with a fresh face instead of Zinta herself.
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Producers: Preity Zinta, Neelu Zinta. |
Zinta, named Ishkq in the film, is on her way back home to Paris from Rome where she had gone to spend a weekend. She is the daughter of Isabelle Adjani, a famous artiste, a single mother having parted from her husband, Shekhar Kapur, when Zinta was only seven. Sitting across from Zinta on the train is Rhehan Malliek, an Indian settled in London. He is on the train because he missed his morning flight to London, hence onto Paris to take a morning train to London!
Since childhood Ishkq has been taught Hindi to near perfection and the duo get talking. Since Zinta is a local and Malliek has a night to while away, he suggests she spends the night with him and show him around town and generally have fun together. Obviously, Malliek also has sex in mind so, thoughtfully, also packs a condom with his loose change. On the way, a street vendor, Chunkey Pandey, sells them a dice, you toss it and it decides your next programme; it has drinks, dinner, dance, sex etc written on its sides. Zinta is game for drinks, dinner, dance but not sex. She is more traditional than Malliek. This revelry which continues till interval was evident in a recent film, London Paris, New York. Wanting you to come back after the interval, a slide before the interval promises you a story in the second half; in a 97 minute film, at least now a story needed to be incorporated since Malliek is coming back to Paris for work as well as with hopes of catching up with Zinta.
The gist of the story is this, that Zinta hates marriages because she hates divorces because her father deserted her and Adjani early in life. Malliek also hates marriage because of similar reason. And, subconsciously, they both have fallen in love but spend rest of the time in denial till this become the story of an aged Adjani and the aging Zinta where Adjani confides that her father, Kapur, had not deserted them but since he and Adjani were both passionate about their work, they had decided to part amicably. Before Adjani even finishes explaining the real thing, Zinta is on the run, halfway through to catching Malliek before he leaves her for good. Come to think of it, the first half without a story was less complicated!
What the film has to offer is scenic Paris and some witty exchanges between Zinta and Malliek. As for performances, since the casting is not convincing, acting does not matter. Music needed to be much better. However, Kudiye di kurti…, performed by Salman Khan and Teri choodiyan…have sectional audio appeal. Direction is passable. Photography is eye pleasing.
Ishkq In Paris faces poor prospects.
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.
