Eeb Allay Ooo!

The idea of the film came to Vats after he read a news report on how under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, langurs could no longer be used to scare away monkeys at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, which is the seat of central governance and bureaucracy, and how consequently authorities had employed people to dress up as langurs and imitate them to drive away the monkeys, who often caused nuisance.[2]

Vats said in an interview in The Times of India: "What we wanted to comment on was contractual jobs. The central character, Anjani, chases monkeys and through him (and others), we tell the story of people who make our cities, our houses, what they are, but remain invisible...Today, we are saying that migrant labourers have been given shabby treatment, but it doesn't really come as a surprise. There are many other examples. In 2010, during the Commonwealth Games, the slums were literally hidden, and those who live in those slums are people who built our cities."[3]

In an interview in The Hindu, Vats said: "I was wondering whether to make a documentary or a mockumentary, but as we got into it, we decided to make it like an absurd fiction while keeping it very real, because only then would the absurdity work...While outwardly a satire, I hope the film is true to the internal complexities."[4]

The filming was done in about 60 days in 2018.[3] For the scenes featuring the monkey menace, the crew often had to wait for days to get the desired reactions from the monkeys, and throughout filming, there was a veterinarian on set.[3]

The location sound was recorded single-handedly by Bigyna Dahal from FTII, who also doubled as a boom operator.[5] This was done because most of the film had to be shot at sensitive and strategic locations near the Parliament of India where crowd control was near to impossible and signal jammers disrupted wireless devices.

The film has been critically acclaimed. As of July 2020, the film holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on six reviews with an average rating of 7.5/10.[6]

Jay Weissberg of Variety said about the central performance and direction: "Bhardwaj captures the right mix of wounded pride, annoyance and exasperation, building up Anjani’s energy until his clowning temporarily liberates the character from the humiliation. Much to his credit, Vats treats the real rhesus wranglers such as Mahinder with dignity and respect: when attempted by an amateur, the job seems silly, but in the hands of those trained to scare off the monkeys, the work becomes a necessary public service, done with aplomb and humor."[7] Deborah Young of Hollywood Reporter praised the cinematography and the original score in her review: "Saumyananda Sahi’s eye-catching cinematography gives a keen sense of New Delhi’s ever-hazy atmosphere with its stately government buildings and chaotic but colorful backstreets where the characters live, while Anshul Takkar’s highly original score is based on sounds."[8]

The film was selected for the Panorama section of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival in 2020.[9] At the Mumbai Film Festival, it won the Golden Gateway Award in the India Gold section.[10]