Hindi
Salman’s Bodyguard opens strong
MUMBAI: Salman Khan‘s Bodyguard has made the most of Eid-day release with the Ganeshotsav holiday following a day later. The movie collected Rs 411 million in these two days itself.
The collections softened somewhat on Friday and Saturday to peak again on Sunday to end its five-day weekend with a whopping Rs 889.5 million.
Made on a production budget of Rs 620 million, the print and promotion cost would peg the total cost of the movie at over Rs 800 million. The smart release strategy has, undoubtedly had a role to play in keeping Reliance Entertainment‘s recent good run going with a worthy grosser in the wake of Singham.
While Bodyguard may have limited repeat value and show a decline at multiplexes, its collections at single screen are still holding on.
With its impressive opening overseas and an assured following on satellite and video market, Bodyguard is sure to prove an earner if not a goldmine!
Shabri with Rs 2.64 million, Yeh Dooriyan with Rs 2.72 million and Chitkabrey with Rs 1.62 million in their first-week run prove poor contenders.
Aarakshan collected Rs 43 million in its third week to take its total to Rs 372 million.
Singham, having come to an end of its successful run, added Rs 11 million in its fifth week to take its tally to Rs 999.5 million.
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara collected Rs 11 million in its seventh week to take its total up to rs 866 million.
Murder2 mopped up Rs 489.5 million at the end of eight weeks.
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.
