Hindi
Sonakshi Sinha to play a Bengali Woman in Bullett Raja
This Bollywood beauty, Sonakshi Sinha has always charmed the audiences with her simplicity and will continue doing so with Bullett Raja, to woo her fans. This time, she will be seen in never seen before avatar. Sonakshi will be seen as a bong beauty.
For her role in the film, Sonakshi has left no stone unturned and is going all out. She will be seen performing a Bengali folk dance called ‘Jhumur dance’. This is typical Bengali dance and is practiced all over West Bengal.
Sonakshi will be seen as a true Bengali woman as she is wearing the quintessential red bordered saree, along with big red bindi on her forehead, gajrah in her hair and alta on her hands. When asked about the look Sonakshi said, “This is for the second time; I am playing a Bengali girl. I have played a Bengali in Lootera, but that was drastically different, I was a 1950 Bengali Girl, who is a Zamindar’s daughter. In Bullett Raja, I am playing a contemporary Bengali girl. I loved my look for the Bengali avatar. It gave me a very traditional feel. I wish the sequence we shot in that costume was a little longer, because I did not want to get out of it.”
And about the traditional dance, she added, “I absolutely loved donning this look; there is a certain grace to it. Once I was in it everyone was shocked at how bengali I looked. The jhumur is a beautiful feminine traditional dance, and Brinda mam being so good at what she does taught me really well!”
Releasing on 29 November, Bullett Raja is premised on fictional mafia based in Uttar Pradesh starring Saif Ali Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Jimmy Shergill, Vidyut Jamwal, Gulshan Grover, Raj Babbar and Chunky Pandey. Produced by Tigmanshu Dhulia, Nitin Tej Ahuja, Rahul Mitra; and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia as well.
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.
