Hindi
Race 2 collects Rs 509.8 mn in opening weekend
MUMBAI: Race 2 makes the most of its brand equity and an extended weekend of three holidays to take an impressive three-day box office. The mixed appreciation notwithstanding, the film has gone on to collect Rs 509.8 million for its opening weekend.
The film showed its best performance on Saturday, the 26 January national holiday, with a jump of over 35 per cent over its opening day collections.
Inkaar, a modern day work place love versus politics drama, fails to make a mark. The film opened with poor collections and failed to earn any footfalls thereafter to end its first week with a figure of Rs 77.5 million.
Mumbai Mirror collected about Rs 15 million in its first week.
Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola remained on the lower side even in its second week despite weak oppositions and collected Rs 71.5 million taking its tally to Rs 385 million.
Table No 21 added Rs 8 million in its third week to take its total to Rs 120.7 million.
Dabangg2 added Rs 5.5 million in its fifth week, taking its total to Rs 1.45 billion.
An assorted lot of films is due for release on February 1. These include Mai, David, Listen Amaya, Pyar Ka Jalwa and, probably, Vishwaroopam. The trade, especially the exhibitors, however, are looking forward to 8 February for the release of Special 26 coming from A Wednesday! director Neeraj Pandey and; ABCD- Any Body Can Dance, India‘s first 3-D dance film, directed by choreographer Remo D‘Souza and starring ace dancer Prabhudheva.
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.
