‘Gram Chikitsalay’ review: A bitter pill to swallow
From the makers of Panchayat comes a variation of the urban-fish-in-rural-pond story. Gram Chikitsalay takes up the worthy cause of severely neglected rural health care.
In Panchayat, Abhishek reluctantly works as a village council’s secretary. In Gram Chikitsalay, Prabhat willingly relocates to the fictitious Bhatkandi hamlet in Jharkhand to serve as the medical officer at its public health centre.
Noble intent swiftly gives way to ignoble reality. Prabhat (Amol Parashar) encounters a broken set-up and individuals who treat his do-gooder act as a passing fancy, a source of entertainment even in a place where time moves slowly and nothing happens.
The health centre has barely any resources and staffers who should not be anywhere near a medical facility. Puthani (Anandeshwar Dwivedi) is a compounder of anything but medicine. Gobind (Akash Makhija) is a ward boy without a ward.
The quack Chetak (Vinay Pathak) is managing to treat Bhatkandi’s residents just fine. Only the nurse Indu (Garima Vikrant Singh) understands Prabhat’s importance.
Gram Chikitsalay has been created by Arunabh Kumar and Deepak Kumar Mishra, written by Vaibhav and Shreya, and directed by Rahul Pandey. The Hindi series comes in at five episodes, in what appears to be a truncated first season. Whatever is on display is a work in progress, just like Prabhat.
The idealistic doctor’s dilemmas closely resemble the...
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