Anukul

Anukul
Poster of the film
Directed by	Sujoy Ghosh
Produced by	Sujoy Ghosh
Screenplay by	Sujoy Ghosh
Story by	Satyajit Ray
Based on	Anukul by Satyajit Ray
Starring	Parambrata Chatterjee Saurabh Shukla
Edited by	Namrata Rao
Production company	Boundscript Motion Pictures
Distributed by	Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films
Release date	4 October 2017 (2017-10-04)
Running time	21 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Anukul is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language short film directed by Sujoy Ghosh with Parambrata Chatterjee and Saurabh Shukla playing the lead roles.^[1] It is based on Satyajit Ray's short story of the same name.^[2][3]

Plot

Nikunj Chaturvedi (Saurabh Shukla), a Hindi teacher of a school, bought an android (Parambrata Chatterjee) from a salesperson (Ekavali Khanna) of Chowringhee Robot Supply Corp. Before buying the salesperson warns Nikunj Babu not to hit the android named Anukul.

Few days after Nikunj Babu's cousin brother Ratan (Kharaj Mukherjee) came to visit Nikunj Babu's home. He surprise to see that his brother bought a robot, as he was recently fired from his workplace because of some robot, he gets angry. He even hit the robot with an iron, as the robot gone unconscious.

Sometime later Ratan again visited his brother's house to tell that he became a millionaire as some relative of him died recently and all wealth named him. As Nikunj goes out of Ratan's eyesight, he again tried to hit Anukul, but this time Anukul gave him a high voltage electric shock. He dies instantly.

A while later a lawyer (Barun Chanda) visited Nikunj Babu's house and tell him that he now becomes the owner of all the wealth of Ratan, as no descendants of Ratan is still alive. The amount of money of the wealth is ₹11 and a half crore.

Cast

• Parambrata Chatterjee as Anukul, an Humanoid robot who has human like thinking.
• Saurabh Shukla as Nikunj Chaturvedi, a school teacher and the owner of Anukul.
• Kharaj Mukherjee^[1] as Ratan, the cousin brother of Nikunj Babu.
• Kanchan Mullick as Kanchan Khatmal, the president of Human Servants Association.
• Barun Chanda as the Lawyer
• Ekavali Khanna as the CRS salesperson
• Dr. Ranjan Raychowdhury as himself

Production

Director Sujoy Ghosh wanted to make Anukul after the success of his 2015 short film Ahalya. He had initially cast Ronodeep Bose for the role of Anukul. But, the actor met with a tragic bike accident and slipped into coma. Ghosh had also thought of casting Abir Chatterjee and Jisshu Sengupta for the role,^[4] but that did not go through. So, Ghosh had to shelve the project. After some time, the project was re-opened and Ghosh started to shoot Anukul with a brand new cast. Starring in the short film are Kharaj Mukherjee, Saurabh Shukla and Parambrata Chatterjee.^[1]

Reception

The film gained above 100,000 views within 24 hours of its release.^[5]

The short film has received positive responses from the critics around India.^[6][7][8] The Indian Express said, "The short film makes one think about the possibilities that are on the verge of becoming a reality and Ghosh’s haunting tone in some parts of the film leaves you with an eerie feeling. It makes one wonder that if this is the future we’re actively stepping into, then the race for survival is going to turn even more brutal but only for those who are not willing to welcome it."^[9] A notable Indian actor, Amitabh Bacchan, has praised the short film.^[10] Hindustan Times said, "Both Saurabh and Parambrata give understated performances, in sync with the mood of the film. And, without saying much, the climax leaves us in a dilemma - should we judge the characters for what they did or should we applaud their presence of mind?".^[11]

See also

• Ahalya

References

External links

• Anukul on YouTube
• Anukul on IMDb