Hindi
Ludo directors announce the Rock Band Hunt winners
MUMBAI: The Ludo Rock Band Hunt has finally come to an end with the director team of Q, Nikon and music director Neel Adhikari declaring ‘Delete’ as the winner of the hunt. Ludo is the latest film by the director duo Q and Nikon, who made the critically acclaimed and controversial film Gandu.
The Rock Band Hunt was a unique contest that the Ludo team launched to attract the best musical talent in Bengal and give these upcoming groups an opportunity to showcase their music through the film. It saw 76 bands participate, of which 10 bands, based on maximum popularity on various (social) platforms, got an opportunity to move to the second phase of the hunt. Five other directors’ choice bands made it 15 teams to audition for the look test.
‘Delete’ vocalist Biswarup Roy said, “Extremely thankful to the entire Ludo team for making us a part of this competition. It means a lot to us and we feel great. We are also thankful to everyone who voted for us in the initial rounds and helped us on our way to the top 15.”
Ludo’s music director Neel Adhikari said, “We were amazed with the passion and talent that all the bands brought into the competition. Finalising ‘Delete’ was an extremely tough challenge as several other bands presented great music and screen presence.”
‘Delete’ along with the two runners-up – ‘Danpitey’ and ‘Addiction’, will feature in the fantasy- thriller-horror Ludo, in relevant scenes portraying rock bands in the film.
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.
