Director Aranya Sahay’s debut feature film, Humans in the Loop (2024/2025), a Hindi-Kurukh drama about is about an Adivasi woman in Jharkhand who labels data for AI, exploring themes of hidden labour, technology ethics, and Indigenous knowledge versus algorithms, often juxtaposing her rural life with the digital world of AI training. The phrase highlights the film’s focus on the marginalized human element behind artificial intelligence.
In an interview with Firstpost, the main protagonist of the film, Sonal Madhushankar talks about her role in Aranya Sahay’s directorial Netflix’s
_Humans in the Loop_ and she believes independent cinema has a bright future as long as women are in the loop. She doesn’t want to limit herself only to a particular kind of cinema.
The film explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and indigenous communities, and her performance has won several accolades.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
How did the film come to you?
In 2023, I was performing in a play, The Last Audience, which was written by my husband, Rahul Patil. And during one of the shows, Ronak Khan observed my work. Ronak is an actor and he’s friends with Aranya Sahay. And Aranya had been searching for someone to portray Nehma within the NSD and FTI community. And I didn’t belong to that community.
I have 10 years of theatre experience and I’m a trained actor. And I’m really very thankful to Ronak for thinking of me and recommending my name to Aranya. So, I have shared my previous work and a few auditions with Aranya and he liked it. And after that, he had sent me an audition script and I had given several auditions and eventually ended up doing Nehma.
Tell us about your journey in the entertainment industry… you always wanted to become an actor?
I always wanted to become an actor. When I was in college, I did engineering and I had shared this dream with my then friend Rahul Patil, who is now my husband, that I want to become an actor. And he remembered that. I’m from Chandrapur, that’s my hometown, and we didn’t have guidance on how to become an actor. And I didn’t actually have courage to tell my parents that, instead of engineering, I would like to pursue acting. I didn’t have any idea also that to become an actor, you need to get trained in it. So, after my marriage, my husband introduced me to an acting workshop which was meant for IT professionals. So, I did that acting workshop.
Then we gave it a thought and formed one group which was meant for IT professionals who want to pursue acting along with their job and we used to do theatre on weekends so that’s how we started and quarterly used to do a play and ultimately, I resigned from my job because Rahul had faith in me. He has always believed in me and my craft, and he wanted me to pursue acting. At that time, I was working in Infosys and I had joined this Pratidin group where we used to do theatre. It got very difficult for me you know to you know just juggle between my IT job and my dream. I resigned from my job and after doing six months of searching for a role I ended up working for one of the biggest casting firms in India. That is Shanu Sharma casting team, which does casting for Yash Raj films.
I did the casting job for approximately 18 months and I enjoyed it. And I understood what goes behind the camera, meeting actors and everything. So, I got more passionate towards my craft. I got a role in Gangubai Kathiawadi after giving an audition. And as an actor, I started my journey with Gangubai Kathiawadi, Delhi Crime 2, Duranga. And I have been doing theatre along with screen work. And then, as you know, that I ended up doing Humans in the Loop and I’m so happy that all these roles that I did in my career has made a responsible person.
Your character Nehma is tech savvy, but there are certain ethics of AI. How did you prepare yourself for that?
I am also an engineer, so I’m skilled and comfortable with the technology. I had to do machine learning for a client at Infosys; I was building a program that would automate a task that the person was doing, essentially taking away someone’s job. I questioned whether that use-case had ethics or not. When I was coding, I was only concerned about my job. My ethics were driven by the fear of losing my livelihood. AI can be ethical when we want it to be.
Our caste system has many loopholes when it comes to ethics. The one phrase we have been using since generations is- Dimaag mat lagao(don’t use your brain). I am Dalit. The way I live doesn’t fit the prototype of how a Dalit is expected to live and behave. For this role, I am fortunate enough to have gone through the pain and hesitation, confidence and resilience. This has been crucial in building my character. It made my life easier to connect with Nehma. The moment I read the audition script, I knew I could relate to the character.
Nehma is also not a perfect mother. How much do you relate to the character?
For me Nehma is a perfect mother. We don’t censor art, we censor reality. And in reality, I think mothers are imperfect. The way mothers are portrayed in Indian cinema are loving, caring, responsible, elegant. But the way Aranya’s film Humans in the Loop has portrayed Nehma is different. I mean, she is selfish. She is sometimes brutal and prioritizes herself.
She has come back to her roots, leaving her daughter relationship with her aside, I think she is a strong woman. In the end, when you watch Humans in the Loop, she apologized to her daughter. A parent apologising to their child may feel far-fetched or wishful thinking, but I believe that because Nehma was empathetic towards herself, she was able to do that. And I think mothers should love themselves and allow themselves to make mistakes.
What do you have to say about the success of independent movies in India?
I can see a bright future for independent cinema as women are in the loop and I think women filmmakers are making us proud and receiving recognition all over the world, be it Payal Kapadia for All We Imagine as Light, Sivranjani J for her Malayalam film Victoria, Anuparna Roy for Songs of Forgotten Trees and there are many women filmmakers whose perspective we included without making their experiences invalid. This movement led by women gives us a bright future. We need to be more inclusive when it comes to the marketing of these independent films. The support will make filmmakers feel more confident.
Were you always interested in alternative cinema?
I was interested in cinema. I am ready to take any challenge and not scared. My caste and gender have already instilled fear in my DNA. Now I just want to be fearless and work. I have my voice and I want to project it through my craft. I don’t want to limit myself to a particular kind of cinema. I have done Gangubai Kathiawadi, Delhi Crime Season 2 and Duranga. I have done commercial cinema more than independent cinema. So, I don’t want to limit myself.
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