Hindi
Ranveer Singh in Magadheera remake
MUMBAI: After months of keeping the industry in suspense, producers Vikas Bahl and Anurag Kashyap have signed Ranveer Singh to play the lead role in the Hindi remake of the 2009 Telugu hit Magadheera.
With his signing, Singh has edged out Hrithik Roshan and Ranbir Kapoor, the names of whom that were constantly doing the rounds.
Confirming the same, Bahl said, “Magadheera is a passion project for us, and we are excited to have the rights to re-create this magical piece of work. Ranveer is the best thing that could have happened to it.
He has all the ingredients to be a passionate lover, a warrior and an entertainer, all at the same time. All the fans of Magadheera are coming together to recreate its magic with the support of Allu Arvind, the producer of the original film.”
Magadheera is a historic love story. Set against the backdrop of 17th century India, the film is said to have an estimated budget of Rs 50 crore.
Preparing for the role, Singh will undergo intense physical training. He will also interact with Ram Charan, who played the lead in the original, to get some valueable inputs.
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.
