Hindi
Kabir Sadanand to recreate Abid Surti’s Bahadur for big screen
MUMBAI: Actor, writer, director Kabir Sadanand, known for his film Tum Milo Toh Sahi, is geared up to recreate Abid Surti‘s famous cult comic hero Bahadur of Indrajal comic, in his next titled Bahadur vs Bahadur.
Sadanand was quoted saying, “Bahadur has been a character that has always inspired me. I am making a film on him. However, it is too early to talk about the project just yet. We will be in a better position to talk about the film within a couple of months.”
The film would be made under Sadanand‘s own production banner Frog Unlimited.
Bahadur was a comic book hero published by Indrajal Comics and created by Aabid Surti in 1976. The comics were published in various languages including Hindi, English and Bengali.
The plot of Bahadur focused on dacoity, revolved around Bahadur, the son of a dacoit Vairab Singh who died in a combat with the Police. Incidentally, Bahadur, then a teenager, was adopted by Vishal, the police officer who shot Vairab Singh.
It is being rumoured that A-list actors have evinced interest in being cast in Sadanand‘s new venture.
Earlier, many filmmakers including the late Raj Kapoor had shown keen interest in translating Surti‘s comic hero into a Bollywood star but failed in their attempts.
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.
