Ek Doctor ki Maut

Leprosy- a curse to Mankind- an ancient disease which affects nervous tissue & creates numbness over the body resulting in fingers & toes to fade away. But in real sense, leprosy affects the mind & heart of society and makes it insensitive. The story of ‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’ is based upon a crazy doctor- Dr Deepankar Roy played by veteran actor Pankaj Kapoor with his soul. Dr Deepankar is haunted by the idea of developing a vaccine against Leprosy. He has a dream to eradicate leprosy from the world. He devotes many restless nights to develop such vaccine & to have it free from any adverse effects. He is so much succumbed with his work that he don’t have any time for his loving wife – Seema ( Played by veteran Shabana Azmi). Finally, Dr Deepankar succeeds in developing such vaccine which has an additional beneficial effect in treating the women sterility. Journalist Amulya ( played by my favourite Irfan Khan) publishes the breakthrough news in his newspaper & in a short time, Dr Deepankar becomes world famous figure.
Unfortunately, many other doctors, especially the lobby of Gynaecologists could not digest Dr Deepankar’s success & the ability of vaccine to decrease the woman sterility. The lobby, along with adamant government officials defames Dr Roy’s breakthrough & calls it a publicity stunt. And to stop Dr Deepankar to publish his research papers, the health department transfers him to a remote village hospital. Dr Deepankar couldn’t complete the research papers while working in that overloaded village hospital with meager facilities. Finally, Dr Arijit (Dr Deepankar’s friend) helps him to have a transfer on the same Kolkata’s hospital where he was working earlier. Dr Deepankar completes his research papers, but being a government servant, he has to get the clearance from a government’s committee & only after that he could submit those papers to an International Research Foundation. The government’s committee included a corrupt & egoistic govt officer, a jealous gynaecologist & some unscientific morons who has nothing to do with the science of the Vaccine. The committee rejected Dr Deepankar’s research & abandoned him to submit the papers in International Research Foundation. Frustrated Dr Deepankar gives up hope & kills the Scientist within him.
The film focuses on the corruption & red-tapism in the system, the cheap attitude of our society, the adverse environment for Creativity in our country & the insensitivity of us towards a problem; towards human sufferings.

A truly powerful film with a strong message & with Pankaj Kapoor at his best.
Thank you Tapan Sinha- the writer & director of such eye opening movie.
( The story is based on a true life of a Doctor who committed suicide few years back causing much pain & concern in our society).