Hindi
‘Piku’ first look: Big B dons a pot belly
MUMBAI: When the entire industry is moving in the direction of six-pack abs, Amitabh Bachchan dons a pot belly for his next project Piku.
The first look of the movie shows a pot-bellied Big B dressed in a checked overshirt and wearing an angler’s hat with longish silver locks peeping out.
Revealing the first look on twitter, the official twitter ID of the movie, PikuTheFilm tweeted “He’s at it again! @SrBachchan pulling off yet another character with ease.”
Directed by Vicky Donor and Madras Cafe fame Shoojit Sircar, the movie is a quirky roller coaster ride of a crazy father-daughter relationship, essayed by Bachchan and Deepika Padukone. The supporting cast includes actors Irrfan Khan, Moushumi Chatterjee and Bengali star Jisshu Sengupta. Piku also marks coming together of Shoojit Sircar and Ronnie Lahiri with Juhi Chaturvedi, who has scripted the film and earlier won accolades and awards for Vicky Donor.
“Piku is a story that will warm your heart and make you smile! We have the best of the talent coming together for a refreshing tale of a father-daughter relationship. I am privileged to direct Mr. Bachchan along with Deepika and Irrfan. They are three powerhouse performers and it doesn’t get better than this for me,” said Sircar.
Adding to that, Bachchan further stated, “What makes the process of filming Piku extremely enjoyable is that it is helmed by Shoojit Sircar and also stars the immensely talented Deepika Padukone and Irrfan Khan. The film has an interesting story and there is a lot of excitement on the sets.”
The film is also ready to kick off its second schedule in Kolkata from November 2014 after having a successful Mumbai schedule in August and September 2014.
“There are several projects that I undertake in a year but there’s always that one film that you look forward to and to me Piku is that film. I am really excited and look forward to begin work on this one,” reckoned Irrfan Khan.
Produced by MSM Motion Pictures, in association with Saraswati Entertainment Creations and Rising Sun Films, the movie is slated to release on 30 April 2015.
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.
