"I never expected to be approached for a love story after Paatal Lok,' laughs Abhishek Banerjee, the casting director-actor who caught everyone's attention with his menacing act as Hathoda Tyagi last year. There has been no looking back for him since as he bagged pivotal roles in several films and web series. His latest offering Ankahi Kahaniya, however, is special to him as it marks his first brush with the genre of romance. 'It is a difficult emotion to portray on screen. As actors, we practice dramatic and comedy [scenes] hardly does one portray romance. During my theatre years, we never thought about doing what Shah Rukh Khan has done [in terms of depicting love]. Growing up in India, the dating culture has always been understood through films,' he says.

The Netflix anthology on love though is a far cry from the mainstream boy-meets-girl romantic dramas. In her short film, director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari weaves in loneliness and the need for companionship as she tells the story of a salesman mdash essayed by Banerjee mdash who finds an unusual companion in a mannequin. To the actor, working with Tiwari has been an 'unforgettable' experience. 'I hope to work with her again because she lives in a beautiful world [created by her imagination]. Her creative energy reflects in the films she makes. The minute she started directing me and telling me how she [visualises] the story, it was clear that I needed to see her world through her eyes.'