Hindi
Jungle Book, Baghi continue strong, poor new releases
MUMBAI: Two of the three new releases of the week faced disastrous outcome.
London 1920 was the sole release of the three which managed to cross the Rs crore mark on its opening day. This horror genre film has done fair business in its opening weekend by collecting Rs 7.3 crore.
Traffic, a hit in three South Indian languages, failed to generate curiosity and failed to attract viewers. The film opened to poor footfalls. At ticket rates priced at hundreds and no entertainment, it failed to get the audience. The film had opening day way short of the Rs crore figure and ended up collecting Rs 2.1 crore for its first weekend.
As for, One Night Stand, how long can one sell a revealing Sunny Leone’s sex appeal and a fetching title? The film fared the worst of the three releases. It collected Rs 2 crore for its opening weekend..
Baaghi reaped the benefits of poor opposition in its second weekend. There has not been a mass entertainer in the last few months. The film, after a lucrative first weekend of Rs 38.7 crore, followed up with a reasonably good business in the following days to complete its first week with Rs 59.6 crore.
Short Cut Safari remained very poor.
Nil Battey Sannata just about managed to touch the Rs crore mark in its first week.
Santa Banta Pvt Ltd added Rs 1.5 lakh in its second week, having Rs 71.5 lakh to show for its two week run.
Fan has fallen badly. The film collected Rs 1.2 crore in its third week to take its three week total to Rs 83.8 crore.
Jungle Book maintained its hold at the box office with amazing figures even in its fourth week. The film collected Rs 17.4 crore taking its four week total to Rs 168.9 crore.
Ki & Ka added Rs 20 lakh in its fifth week to take its five week total to Rs 51.35 crore.
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.
