Radhika Apte talks about society’s ‘not-so-tolerant’ nature

After the positive reception of Lust Stories and Sacred Games, Ghoul, starring Radhika Apte and Manav Kaul, is going to be another feather in Netflix’s hat. Ghoul is a horror thriller but here the horror element goes past the ghosts and the spirits. The horror in Ghoul comes from its setting, the dystopian world where the government keeps a keen eye on the actions of its citizens. Anyone who dares to raise their voice is silenced and all those who follow blindly the orders of the establishment have a chance at survival.
Radhika Apte said if it scares her as this dystopia could one day become our reality and she candidly said that it wasn’t too difficult to imagine. “It is not too difficult to imagine that world as in a way it is our current state of affairs. There are parts of it you can see it around us. You can see that sort of extremism in so many things. Not just when it comes to religion but on so many levels in the society, everybody is not so tolerant,” she said.
Elaborating further on the same, Radhika explained, “They are not compassionate enough to accept other people’s points of view. They want to label themselves, other people and just want to fight. And I think that was there decades ago as well. So it’s quite relevant to any time or any place in the world and any subject matter, not necessarily religion.”
Producer Vikramaditya Motwane too chimed in about the dystopian world they have created with Ghoul and said, “Ghoul is talking about what would happen in a dystopian world if this was happening anywhere in the world. I don’t think it’s specific to India, it would be the same thing if it was happening in the US as well. Nationalism is on the rise everywhere in the world.”
Talking about the creation of the dystopian world. Motwane credited some of the classics. “I think it’s very inspired from books. If it’s 1984, or it’s Fahrenheit 451, there is a sense of a surveillance state. It is a very literature-based thing, which is not unusual. It’s not like we did anything new.”