Hindi
Subhash Ghai plans day-long tribute to Ashok Mehta
MUMBAI: Filmmaker Subhash Ghai has planned to organise a day-long tribute in honour of late cinematographer Ashok Mehta at his media and film institute Whistling Woods on 27 August.
On the occasion, exhibitions and seminars on Mehta‘s works have been planned. His directorial debut Moksh will also be screened in the presence of its lead actors Arjun Rampal and Manisha Koirala.
Mehta, who breathed his last on 15 August at the age of 65 following advanced lung cancer, was among one of India‘s best known cinematographers. Films that he was associated with were Shekhar Kapur‘s Bandit Queen, Shyam Benegal‘s Mandi and Trikaal, Aparna Sen‘s 36 Chowringhee Lane and Paroma, Shashi Kapoor‘s Utsav and MF Hussain‘s Gaja Gamini.
Incidentally, Ghai and Mehta worked together in films like Ram Lakhan (1989), Khal Nayak (1993) and Kisna (2005).
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.
