Doctor G- A story of Doctor written by a Doctor

New Delhi: The recently released trailer of Doctor G starring Ayushmann Khurrana in the lead role has created quite a stir in the medical fraternity since the movie portrays the journey of a resident doctor who wanted to pursue Orthopaedics but ends up in the Gynaecology department.

While the movie has promised to offer an inside tour of the medical colleges, hospitals and the Gynaecology department in specific, the expectations are also high among the doctors for the fact that the movie has been written by a doctor himself.

Dr. Saurabh Bharat, a dentist turned writer, wrote this movie along with his friend Vishal Wagh. After completing his BDS degree, Dr. Bharat decided not to continue in medical profession and got himself enrolled in the New York Film Academy.

After completing one year diploma in film making, he came back to Mumbai and started working as an Assistant Director. Previously he has assisted in many films including Prakash Jha in Satyagraha. However, later he turned himself towards writing and started working on feature films. While Doctor G is his first film, he is currently working on three other projects.

The trailer of Doctor G, which got 35 Million plus views across all social media platforms within 24 hours of its release on Tuesday, is a medical campus comedy-drama portraying the journey of an MBBS graduate, who wanted to pursue his career in Orthopaedics. However, he ends up in the Gynaecology department instead, being the only man in the department surrounded by female patients, colleagues, and Professors.

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Speaking about the film, Dr. Bharat told Medical Dialogues, "I got the idea while I was visiting my wife, who is a Gynaecologist, back in 2011. After that I developed the story with my friend Vishal into a proper screenplay draft. The Draft was submitted to Junglee pictures back in 2016 and it has definitely been a long journey."

When asked about how he is feeling with all the responses regarding the trailer, Dr. Bharat, who belongs to a family of doctors added, "I am feeling overwhelmed right now and especially because of the medical community. My whole family belongs to this profession. My elder brother is a radiologist, my wife is a Gynaecologist, my Bhaabi (sister-in-law) is an Anesthetist, and my twin brother is an MD Pathologist, who is also joining me as a screenwriter in my next project. So I belong to a family of doctors and watching their story on the screen- it is a moment of pride for me and also for my family because in a way my first film is about the people who are actually around me."

"I have seen their day-to-day struggles and how they actually became doctors and how difficult a journey the doctors needs to face. I always thought that there has not been true representation or real representation of Indian doctors' journey," he added.

Dr. Bharat talked about portraying the journey of doctors in a "light but insightful" manner and also informed about his background work for the film. "After the initial idea, I Interviewed my wife and took her experiences and cases from her practice. Apart from that, we also interviewed five to six Gynaecologists and took their feedback and inputs. They also narrated their own experiences," he said.

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Speaking about the protagonist who is possibly the only male student in the whole class of Gynaecology, Dr. Bharat added, "That was also taken from real life. When i visited my wife back in 2012, her Postgraduate batch had seven girls and one boy. That's what excited me about the idea that usually we see the world as a man's world, where women are trying to make their space. But this is a very unique world which actually belongs to females since the professors, the patients, the colleagues, everyone is a female." 

"Gynaecology department in itself in indeed a different world, which belongs to females and what if a male enters into that world? How a male is going to behave in a space which is not his world? This deals with the psychology of a male Gynaecologist and not only a male Gynaecologist, we actually even tried to explore the sexism that is in our society in a very subtle manner," he further mentioned.

In one of the scenes in the trailer, we see a Professor telling the protagonist to lose his "male touch". Dr. Bharat mentioned that it is "dedicated to the doctors".

"When a medical student becomes a doctor all other identities become smaller for him- which caste he belongs to, whether he is a male or female, whether he comes from category or not, all other things take a back seat and the only thing that becomes important is that he is a doctor and he should be a doctor. It's a journey, you cannot gain this just by enrolling into a medical college, I think every doctor needs to go through this journey, which is a very difficult one indeed. In this profession, you have to become a doctor first where it doesn't matter whether the patient is a criminal, a politician, whether he belongs to your enemy family," said Dr. Bharat.

Speaking about the protagonist, Dr. Bharat added that he has tried to show the "humane" side of a doctor by neither extra glorifying him, nor showing him in a negative light. He added that the movie has dealt with lots of issues including the journey of doctors, portrayal of doctors as human beings, the sensitive issue regarding violence against doctors, and finally the moral dilemma of a doctor who needs to do what is best for the patient.

When asked about the response and expectations from the medical fraternity, Dr. Bharat added, "Of course there is an advantage for me to see this world so clearly because I was a doctor and in my family everyone belongs to this profession. But this has also placed a hell lot of responsibility on my shoulder in a way that I feel like the representation of the doctors in the film should be correct and they should not get offended at any point. So yes, there is an immense pressure for balancing everything in a correct manner and yet to ensure that there is drama and entertainment, without affecting anyone. So, I just hope that people like it."

The film Doctor G, directed by Anubhuti Kashyap and starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh, Shefali Shah and Sheeba Chaddha, is slated for release on 14 October 2022.

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