Doctors review: Sharad Kelkar’s show makes you feel and think, doesn’t sugarcoat harsh realities of medical profession

India’s answer to ER/Grey’s Anatomy is here: Doctors, which is as straight-forward a title as you can get, is about just that, a bunch of medics, ranging from eager new residents to rockstar surgeons, as well as other denizens– nurses, interns, administrators– who make up a busy hospital.

It takes a couple of episodes for the 10-part show to get into the groove, which gives us an insider’s look at medical practitioners going all out in high-stress emergencies, as well as dealing with those who are struggling with terminal diseases. These are humans who are also doctors. We see them as people, with their strengths and weaknesses, but who do not compromise when it comes to saving the lives of their patients.

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Like the two long-running American shows that Doctors wants to emulate, personal tics are very much entwined with professional ups and downs. Nitya Vasu (Sethi) who has just joined the prestigious Elizabeth Blackwell Medical Centre in Mumbai has an ulterior motive that she reveals from the get-go. Convinced that top neurosurgeon Ishaan Ahuja (Kelkar) is responsible for botching her brother Dhaval’s (Ali) operation, resulting in permanent damage, she has every intention of making him pay.

The other new arrivals include the boyish Roy Saldhana (Shah), who is sweet on Nitya and makes no bones about it. The very ambitious Keyuri Patel (Lyra Dutt) doesn’t mind playing hard to get into the ER for tough surgeries, pushing other contenders aside. Sweet Naheeda Jaafri (Hashmi) suffers from anxiety attacks, propelling her into difficult situations, which her colleagues Riddhun Sethi and Neil Shastri (Khan, S Sethi) have to deal with, with not very salutary consequences. A few of their exchanges feel shoe-horned in, at least to begin with, but they do manage to give off the feeling of having each other’s backs when required.

The series revolves mainly around the pulls-and-pushes between Nitya and Ishaan, and the stirrings of an attraction may be a predictable outcome between the two, plot-wise (writing credits are shared amongst Shibani Keshkamat, Radhika Anand, Bharat Misra, Sidharth P Malhotra) but both the gravelly-voiced Kelkar who usually gets to play supporting roles in movies, and Sethi, who grabbed our attention in ‘Kohrra’, make it work.

A show like this one, with its eye on the two leads, becomes a tad sketchy about the others. Viraf Patel, as Ishaan’s friend-and-colleague Abhijat Gupta ( Patel), makes you miss him when he’s not around. The unfortunate Dhaval is made to brood too much. And an episode, involving a young doctor who has snapped, is downright problematic in its depiction of the psychiatric ward. The harried administrator ( Fernandes) feels like a stereotype, complaining about pushing files, and not being able to see patients. The nurses are mostly a faceless group, making noises about striking : anyone who has worked in a hospital can tell you that without them nothing works.

But there’s also a lot that feels urgent and real, especially when Ishaan and Abhi conduct complicated surgeries, observed by their junior colleagues through the viewing gallery, duly awed by their prowess. Senior doctor Sabeeha Bannerwala (Jalali), who likes to bark, minus bite, at the new ‘uns, gets to experience what the other side feels like, with a diagnosis which doesn’t really have a prognosis.

Much time is spent in the OT, with bodies supine, machines humming, surgeons scrubbing, blood spilling (we have a bleeder!), and, yes, people dying. The series doesn’t pull back from showing death as inevitable. A principal character, dealing with a particularly virulent cancer, doesn’t make it. And that’s a fact of life. I like that the sugarcoating is kept at a minimum. It makes you feel, and think.

Hopefully the second season will iron out the edges: these are characters I’m happy to spend more time with.