Hindi
Sony Max brings ‘No Talkies Nautanki Returns’ for media agencies
MUMBAI: Sony Max gave Bollywood enthusiasts a reason to rejoice as it kick-started the third season of its flagship event, No Talkies Nataunki Returns.
Organised exclusively for media agencies, this property is an absolute treat for movie buffs as it provides them an opportunity to participate in a national level competition wherein registered teams play ‘Dumb Charades’ on Bollywood films using hand gestures to enact and communicate with each other.
The first round of this three-city event started in Bengaluru on 22 Nov had 13 teams participating from advertising and media agencies. This will be followed by Mumbai and Delhi with an attempt to find the ‘Filmy Deewana’. The closing night of the event will take place in Mumbai.
The pre-activation buzz for the event is currently being held across renowned media agencies including Group M, Madison, OMD, Lodestar, Lintas and MPG, etc.
Bollywood-themed characters are engaging with the office audiences in these agencies to play interactive games and drive registration. The participants can visit the microsite of the event on http://notalkies.sonymax.tv/ to register themselves.
The city rounds of the event commenced in Bengaluru and was followed by Mumbai on 25 November coming to a close with Delhi on 2 December. The finale of the event will be hosted by the RJ Malishka on 9 December in Mumbai wherein the shortlisted winner teams from the three cities will battle it out to win the grand prize worth Rs 25,000 each.
Sony Max Hindi Movie Cluster market communication senior VP Vaishali Sharma said, “The undying passion for Hindi cinema is what Sony MAX is synonymous with, and our flagship property ‘No Talkies Nautanki Returns’ takes this passion a notch higher. This is the third season of our initiative and we are excited as we bring agencies together to feel the magic of movies as we do. With a whopping 150 teams already registering this year with more to come, we aim to build stronger association with the agencies through the success of this initiative. Also Dumb Charades is an all-time fun game and our intent is also to provide them with an enjoyable get-together.”
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.
