Amazon’s Gram Chikitsalaya, No Comparisons Please, We Are Original

Amazon’s Gram Chikitsalaya, No Comparisons Please, We Are Original

Rating: *** ½

 Every single  review of  Gram Chikitsalaya, without fail,  has compared this saucy sassy smart and savvy series to that overrated  satire on  rural development Panchayat.

 It’s like comparing  City  Of Joy with Do Bigha Zameen just because they are both about rural  migration. In spirit, theme  and execution Panchayat and  Gram Chikitsalaya are  poles apart.  At the risk of  inviting  furious  frowns, I would say Gram Chikitsalaya with  its  firm grip on the plot propulsion and  characterizations, is  leaps  ahead of Panchayat, and  if at all it has sought inspiration from the earlier  village fable, then  good: every work of art  comes from a place of  inspiration. Th

    Not that Gram Chikitsalaya is fully vaccinated  against  ailments(it IS about rural healthcare , hence…). There are passages where the village folk take  all the time in the world to get to the point. It’s okay for them. But for  us to be subjected to their languorous lifestyle , and  prolonged  discussions on missing vaccines and  unattended  hydrosil cases,  takes some re acclimatization  which I happily undertook.

 Yes, the  series is worth it.The character  of the  cantankerous  old man who has used the land leading to the dispensary , for farming, with his cackling sardonicism,is  a hoot. And  mind you,  this is  just a  minor character. Almost  all the major characters are vividly  imagined  and played.

Amol Parashar as Prabhat Sinha determined  to  bring healthcare in  a remote village, fighting all sorts  of odds, and oddballs ,  brings  a certain sincerity  to the  character, which I found largely missing in Panchayat. Akash Makhija as  Prabhat’s assistant and  eventually a trusted  confidante is  a revelation. At  places, he is only required to stand watching the  circumstantial circus being  played out. But we know that he knows.

Another  unknown  actor in the forefront  of the plot is Anandeshwar Dwivedi who plays Phutani , a member of the  doctor hero’s team who has plenty  to answer  for and is   man enough to take up the challenge.

 My  favourite sequence  occurs somewhere in mid-series when at a  village wedding Prabhat Sinha confronts the village’s  unqualified  illicit doctor Chetak Kumar(Vinay Pathak, why don’t we see more of  this brilliant actor?) . When  the quack explains  to the certified doctor why patients  prefer  to come to him, a serious lesson of life is served  up along with the food on the table: healing is not about certificates, it’s about trust.

Trust this series to  bullet-fire homilies without  bruising.  I thoroughly enjoyed Gram Chikitsalaya. In  Dr Prabhat Sinha I saw the fruition of a dream that  Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis once dreamt.

   If  only the  faint romantic angle had been avoided! Akansha Ranjan  Kapoor  as Prabhat Sinha’s fellow doctor with  her skin darkened, strikes a cringy  false note in a series which otherwise has its heart in the right place.

 I am sure these villagers  have not seen Panchayat.They have too much on the plate to bother with what the weddings guests  at the next village are eating.