Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

‘We Were Here’ is on YouTube.

‘ROBO NOT ALLOWED,’ reads a dusty, handwritten cardboard sign hanging on the gate of an Indian house, accompanied by a newspaper, another subtle rejection of technology. The humans here still read traditional newspapers, rather than WhatsApp forwards and digitally manipulated videos of cats starring in saas-bahu-style dramas.

Written and directed by Pranav Bhasin, the short film ‘We Were Here’ follows three middle-aged, unemployed friends in a small town in India who decide to protest against the rise of artificial intelligence in rather curious ways. One of them, for example, takes on the role of a dish TV antenna, standing on the terrace all day with an antenna around his neck. His friends similarly ‘steal’ jobs from machines to register their dissent.

Shot like a mockumentary, with a slightly chaotic, late-’90s, early-2000s cinematographic style, We Were Here is a tragicomedy that weaponizes the great Indian uncle to capture the grim frustration of AI taking over human jobs. On the surface, the uncles’ efforts to symbolically replace machines seem pointless and hilariously silly. After all, just because a man stands on a terrace posing as a dish antenna doesn’t make him one. But as the film progresses, their efforts to reclaim their place in society and fight AI become increasingly relatable and touching.

In just ten minutes, Bhasin and his team capture the escalating anxieties surrounding the job market, the generational gap, the growing identity crisis of mid-career professionals living in fear of getting axed, and the devastation of those who’ve already faced the cut. ‘We Were Here‘ juxtaposes these anxieties with a Gen Z youngster landing an internship at an AI firm dealing with data, much to the disappointment of his father, who has a hard time reconciling the fact that his son would choose to work with AI while his own father is protesting against machines.

“They say robots will replace our brain, what about our heart?” an uncle wonders.

Which brings me to the film’s background music, which really is the heart of We Were Here. It’s music that sounds unmistakably human, especially the stretches of drumming that resemble the energetic beats of the dhak during Durga Puja. Those beats become synonymous with the victory of good over evil, or, in this short film’s case, the triumph of the human spirit over AI. It’s easy to imagine ‘We Were Here’ as a theatrical play, and perhaps the team should seriously consider adapting the script for the stage.

‘We Were Here‘ is simultaneously playful, emotional, and grounded in the absurdities of real-life struggles, reflected in the wonderfully bizarre ways these men choose to fight against the system. Their wives aren’t exactly thrilled about their little rebellion, although they do appreciate that it keeps the men busy and out of their hair. And beneath all the silliness lies something poignant: these are men desperate to feel useful again, to remind the world that they still have something to offer. They’re not necessarily fighting to defeat technology; they’re fighting to make sure humanity doesn’t forget they were here.

Watch ‘We Were Here’ on Youtube.

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