Hindi
Karan Johar dons designer’s hat for a women’s collection
MUMBAI: After designing for his friends, Karan Johar is now taking his love for fashion a step further. The filmmaker is all set to make a grand debut as women’s wear designer with fashion brand Vero Moda.
The brand synonymous with contemporary international fashion for women in India is collaborating with the film maker to create the Vero Moda Marquee collection, which will be unveiled by him at Mehboob Studio on 19 September.
“Through the years, I have used my films as an outlet to showcase my own sense of fashion, which is luxurious and grand, yet functional at the same time. This is my first attempt to recreate my own distinct style by putting together a collection for a women’s fashion brand. The fact that I get to do it for a brand like this one makes it very exciting for me,” the film maker said in a statement.
Back in 2010, Johar launched his eponymous menswear label in collaboration with designer Varun Bahl which received very good response.
On the Bollywood front, Johar is currently focusing on Brothers starring Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra; which is a remake of the Hollywood film Warriors. He will also be remaking the cult film Ram Lakhan which will be directed by Rohit Shetty. Also, Salman Khan starrer Shuddhi is in the pipeline for Dharma Productions.
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.
