I am really fortunate that I worked with Mrinalda in that phase of his [life] because whether you look at Khandhar or you look at Genesis or you look at Ek Din Achanak, it was in the era when Mrinalda was rediscovering himself. I think Mrinalda was struggling with his own identity and questioning himself, and asking whether he was mediocre. I think that’s a very courageous thing for an artist to do, to be able to apply that lens through which you see the world also to yourself, and say that you are not above question.

-- Shabana Azmi on working with Mrinal Sen during the 1980s in MRINAL SEN - AN ERA IN CINEMA (dir: Rajdeep Paul, 2016).

Photos of Mrinal Sen shooting Ek Din Achanak (1989), Akaler Sandhane (1980), Khandhar (1984), Ek Din Pratidin (1979), and Genesis (1986). 

The ending sequence is particularly poignant. Exactly one year after the disappearance, the wife and the two daughters is shown recollecting memories about the Professor and discussing the void it had caused in their lives. Shabana Azmi reveals what her father had said to her once "that sadly we all live just once. The professor possibly longed for a second life as it would help him to perfect the mistakes he made in this life and achieve a higher level in his field." The film ends on this wistful note. Interestingly, the director, Mrinal Sen, had said in an interview that on re-assessment of his corpus of work, he would have liked to start afresh from scratch. So, Ek Din Achanak is a very 'personal' work of Mrinal Sen embodying his feeling that a second life would help to achieve greater heights. Ek Din Achanak is possibly the most personal work of Mrinal Sen.  In the words of Mrinal Sen "I wish I could start from scratch. I have done good, bad and indifferent films. I wish I could erase it all and start afresh like the professor of Ek Din Achanak who walked out on his family in a rainy day without even as much as informing anybody. One of the character says 'one of the saddest things in life is that you live only one life'. However famous you are, you are aware of your mediocrity in certain respects. When you realize that, you face a crisis that is insurmountable. Though I have an enviable position as a maker of good, bad and indifferent films, I cannot escape this feeling of mediocrity within. Perhaps it happens because we are too immersed in our own selves."