Hindi
Time ranks Devdas 8th among 10 best films of millenium
MUMBAI: Just as Sanjay Leela Bhansali is celebrating ten years of his 2002 film Devdas, the Time Magazine has ranked the film eighth among the ten greatest films of the millennium.
With this, the Shah Rukh Khan- Madhuri Dixit-Aishwarya Rai starrer finds place among Hollywood biggies like WALL.E (2008), The Lord of the Rings (2001-03), Avatar( 2009), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), The White Ribbon (2009), The Hurt Locker (2009), Synecdoche, New York (2008), Moulin Rouge! (2001) and The Artist (2011).
The magazine has showered praises on Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit describing Khan as an “all-world charismatist” and Dixit, as “a hot number who had danced flamenco on men‘s libidos for a decade or so before appearing in this worldly-wise role” of a prostitute.
“The piece is played with such commitment that the tritest plot twists seem worth believing – and dancing to, in nine nifty production numbers. But the fervid emotion is what makes the thing sing,” the magazine goes on to add.
“Beyond that, Devdas is a visual ravishment, with sumptuous sets, fabulous frocks and beautiful people to fill them; it has a grandeur the old Hollywood moguls would have loved,” Time observes.
“The news couldn‘t have come at a better time as Devdas completes 10 momentous years. It is a very proud and happy moment for me,” Bhansali says.
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.
