Directed by Rahul Pandey, Gram Chikitsalay can be considered a quintessential TVF production, transporting us back to rural India and telling a story about the problems of the healthcare system at the local level. While the narrative is satirical and humorous, that doesn't mean the series stops addressing important issues. Let's find out what happened after Dr. Prabhat Sinha decided to move to a small village to try to improve the healthcare system.
Prabhat Sinha, a gold medalist from a prestigious Indian medical college, was deeply shocked when he set foot in Bhatkandi. The primary care clinic was in a deplorable state, and thanks to his predecessors, not a single patient came seeking care. Instead, everyone went to a man named Chetak Kumar, who didn't even have a medical degree. Phutani, the doctor, showed Prabhat around and explained the current situation. Phutani believed the doctor was only there as a formality and would return to his village in a day. Before Prabhat, no other doctor bothered to stay and see patients, so it stands to reason that Phutani took that for granted. But Prabhat was an idealist. He could have easily worked at his father's hospital in Delhi, but he decided to come to the village because he wanted to make a difference. Phutani, and even the regular boy, Gobind, didn't understand when they heard that. But gradually, they also understood that the new modus operandi was serious.
Creator: Deepak Kumar Mishra
Stars: Amol Parashar, Anandeshwar Dwivedi, Akash Makhija
Prabhat saw that a villager named Ram Avtar, who lived right next to the PHC, had grown crops on government land. When Prabhat asked him to cut down his crop, the man refused and threatened not to let Prabhat destroy his crop. Prabhat had to go to the local police station and ask a constable to help them clear the PHC land. Prabhat realized that Phutani had sold all the authorized medicines to the Bhatkandi Health Center. Phutani honestly told him that the previous Health Minister was taking a 30% cut and that he could give Prabhat an even larger share if he wanted. Prabhat was frustrated and tired of dealing with all these administrative issues, and he didn't know how to solve them. He couldn't go to the police station for every little problem, and he knew he would have to find a way to make everything work. Prabhat met with Gobind and Phutani and told them he needed their help to get the Health Center running again. He knew they were both good people at heart, and if he could appeal to their consciences, they might support him.
Prabhat told Phutani and Gobind that he wanted to meet with the fake doctor Chetak Kumar. Prabhat wanted to confront the man and inform him that if he didn't stop posing as a doctor, he would be forced to take severe action against him. Chetak probably knew what he was up to, but still decided to meet Prabhat. One of the families, mourning the loss of one of their members, organized a community mela. Prabhat went there with Gobind, and there he met Chetak Kumar. To ridicule him in front of everyone, Prabhat asked Chetak where he had graduated. He asked him if he had also pursued a medical degree, knowing full well that the man hadn't studied medicine. Chetak, surprisingly, didn't get angry and told him that everyone in the village knew he hadn't studied medicine.
He said the only difference between him and Prabhat was that he treated the villagers like his own people. Chetak proudly said he had earned the villagers' trust over time, and even knowing he wasn't a real doctor, they decided to seek his treatment. He gave Prabhat a dose of reality, after which his perception of the situation changed completely. He remarked that even during dinner, Prabhat didn't mingle with the villagers. He didn't greet anyone; he didn't try to sit down and chat with them. To Prabhat, they were just patients, but things didn't work that way in the village. Chetak told him that even his doctor had been treated by him in his time, something no one had told him. Prabhat hadn't expected to have such a confrontation with Chetak. He went there to teach him a lesson, but he returned realizing he had to unlearn many things and start from scratch.
There was a fight between supporters of rival groups, so both parties went to Gram Chikitsalay to ask Prabhat to support their cause. Both parties asked him to write a report against their opponent's supporters and state that they had tried to attack them. Both leaders wanted to press charges of attempted murder. Prabhat was in a fix, as he knew what they were capable of. He didn't know how to get out of the situation. Gobind and Phutani tried to support his cause, but they too could do nothing. They informed Kishori that even Bhikari had approached Prabhat to support her. Kishori thought that if he managed to bring patients to the Health Center, Prabhat might write a letter and blame the other party. Meanwhile, Dhelu told Bhikari what Kishori was up to, and he too went to Gram Chikitsalay with patients. Prabhat simply grew frustrated with everything. He told both parties that he wasn't going to write any letters and that they could do whatever they wanted. Prabhat was just trying to fight a corrupt system, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find a way out of the quagmire. Gobind and Phutani were eager to help him, but they also didn't know what to do to bring about a much-needed change in people's perceptions.
At the beginning of Gram Chikitsalay, Indu, the nurse working at the local health center, called Prabhat and told him to receive the box of vaccines that would arrive that day. There was a vaccination campaign scheduled for the village, and Indu asked Prabhat to give the box to her son, as she was busy seeing some patients. Her son, Sudhir, was supposed to take the box and give it directly to his mother, but surprisingly, it never arrived. Later, when Indu went and questioned Prabhat, he told her what had happened, but Sudhir, for some reason, lied and said he had never received a box. Prabhat was furious; he didn't understand why the boy was lying. For a moment, he thought he might have sold her to someone to make money, but there was something really strange about the way Sudhir responded. He seemed too afraid to tell the truth. To understand the context of his behavior, it's important to know what happened to Indu's family in the past. Her husband abandoned her, and after six long years, she returned to the village as an ascetic.
The incident probably had a deep impact on Sudhir's subconscious. The entire village had branded him a liar and a thief, and he was tired of proving his innocence. Indu wanted Sudhir to pass a government exam, believing it was the only way for him to have a good life. But Sudhir wasn't feeling well, and luckily, at the end of the series, Prabhat found out. He found Sudhir standing in the middle of an abandoned lot, muttering to himself. Prabhat quickly realized that the boy was suffering from a mental health problem, probably something along the lines of dissociative identity disorder. He had stolen the vaccines, but in his mind, he was innocent.
Prabhat told Indu, but it wasn't easy for a mother to process that information. At first, Indu denied it, but then she realized that Prabhat was her only hope. Indu's husband knocked on her door and kept begging for alms, as that was the final step toward becoming a saint. Indu had raised her son alone and felt only hatred for her husband. But after talking to Prabhat, Indu realized that all that hatred, all those negative feelings, were probably preventing her from taking the right step. She understood that, for her own well-being and that of her son, she needed to overcome her past traumas. She gave alms to her husband and then went to see Prabhat to tell him that she could take her son for treatment. Sudhir became Prabhat's first patient, and he was proud that he hadn't let his ego get in the way of his sense of duty and had convinced Indu to seek treatment for her son.
The CMO had sent Prabhat a notice after the entire vaccine theft case. He had asked Prabhat to give him the name of the person who had stolen it, but I don't think Prabhat would have revealed that Sudhir was involved. Prabhat was an empathetic man and knew that if he mentioned Sudhir's name, the government would make him pay to recover the losses. We never learned what exactly was mentioned in that government document. Prabhat could be suspended; it's possible he'd receive a final warning, or that Gargi, his colleague, had put in a good word for him, giving him one last chance to continue as a police officer. Perhaps if there's a second season of Gram Chikitsalay, we'll find out, but until then, Prabhat will bask in the glory of finally being able to do some good in the village.
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