Hindi
MOMI honours Om Puri
NEW DELHI: Veteran actor Om Puri, has been feted by Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) in the US for his contribution to the Indian cinema. The honour was given to the 63-year old actor on the eve of release of his next international release, The Hundred Foot Journey co-starring Helen Mirren, which is opening on 8 August.
The actor, who has made a name for himself in Indian and international cinema, discussed his long journey to stardom at a conversation moderated by actress Madhur Jaffrey. This was followed by a screening of his latest film.
Based on the book by Richard C Morais and directed by Lasse Hallström, The Hundred-Foot Journey is about the cultural war that ensues the opening of an Indian restaurant in the south of France next to a famous Michelin-starred eatery. Puri plays the role of a patriarch of a family displaced from their native India. The movie also stars Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon and Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla. It is produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Juliet Blake.
During the conversation with Jaffrey, Puri revealed that when he first came to Delhi nearly four decades ago with only Rs 120 in his pockets to try his luck in theatre, he could not anticipate the success that lay ahead of him. A versatile theater and film actor, Puri, has made a name for himself in Hollywood as well. The actor also added that he and Naseeruddin Shah were the ‘two idiots’ who joined the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune.
Puri made his debut with the Marathi film Ghasiram Kotwal based on a Marathi play of the same name by Vijay Tendulkar. The film was directed by K Hariharan and Mani Kaul in cooperation with 16 graduates of the FTII.
Jaffrey also discussed Puri’s big break in Bollywood – Ardh Satya portraying Puri as a policeman struggling to deal with the evils around and inside him. “This was my lottery in the Hindi film industry. Everybody sort of sat back and noticed me,” Puri said. He also received the National Film Award for Best Actor for the film.
Puri considers himself to be introverted, but he believes acting gave him a voice to convey his emotions. “I had a lot feelings looking at the world around me, particularly, the disparities in society used to disturb me,” he said.
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.
