Tamal Dasgupta’s short film explores the lonely lives of elderly citizens

In January this year, Kolkata was shocked to hear about the news of a tragic death. A 74-year-old former central government employee and his 68-year-old wife — both residents of a four-story building on James Long Sarani near Joka —consumed an entire strip of sleeping pills and allegedly died by suicide hours after they had celebrated the birthday of their 46-year-old daughter along with the latter’s 7-year-old child. The couple wrote a detailed suicide note and titled it “Ichchhamrityu”. It was heartbreaking news for all, especially those elderly who live a lonely life.

Now, filmmaker Tamal Dasgupta has come up with a

short film

that explores the

lonely lives

of

elderly citizens

. Titled ‘

50th Anniversary

’, it tells a story that is becoming familiar these days. The short stars Asit Basu, Aloknananda Roy Banerjee, Ishan Majumdar and

Koushik Chakraborty

in key roles.

With more and more children leaving their homes to settle elsewhere in the country or abroad, their parents are often left alone at home and the empty nest syndrome becomes all too real. Here an elderly couple Samarendra and Anupama lives alone in Kolkata while their son Subhabrata stays in Bangalore with his family. On their 50th marriage anniversary, the lonely elderly couple decides to commit suicide after Samarendra is diagnosed with a highly advanced stage of cancer while Anupama is almost bedridden due to illness.

While the script is by the director himself, the DOP is Mrinmoy Mondal and Tapas Chakrabarty is the editor.