“Can I just get a minute when you’re not throwing another problem in my face?” a senior doctor (Prakash Belawadi) asks his nurse (Balaji Gauri) at the Bombay General Hospital in the second season of Mumbai Diaries. She responds with – “you can get a samosa, an ice cream, maybe even a cola, but you can’t get a minute without a new problem cropping up.”
After all, it’s the nature of a government hospital – where resources are finite, but an ailment is always around to be treated. The first season of the Nikkhil Advani show was a medical drama – a group of young doctors grappling with the eternal push-and-pull with the administration and protocol that gets in the way of saving lives in the ER, with the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
As a medical drama, Mumbai Diaries: 26/11 was just about there, ticking most of the boxes of the genre, led by a maverick doctor, Kaushik Oberoi (Mohit Raina) whose method often skirts the lines of brilliant instinct and reckless daredevilry. Surrounded by superiors who bat for his ways, rookies (Natasha Bharadwaj, Satyajeet Dubey and Mrunmayee Deshpande) who look up to him, Dr. Oberoi is emboldened to listen to his gut rather than following protocol to treat patients. It lent itself to a superb conflict in the first season, when the hotshot doctor tries to revive a gravely injured terrorist who shot a cop, after the cop’s condition goes beyond medical help. There’s resistance from within the hospital staff, cops, and even the slain cop’s spouse.
The second season begins a few months after the events of the first season, in the midst of a torrential downpour the city is known for. Even though the show’s events lie somewhere in June 2009, it uses the events of the 2005 floods that ravaged the city, as the springboard for events in the second season.
Dr. Oberoi is being investigated for “medical negligence” after a high-ranking cop died on a stretcher in front of him, in the first season. Patients are coming in by the dozens because of the floods, some injured because of road accidents, some picking up an illness after wading through drain water for hours. There’s a British delegation at the hospital – forcing hospital authorities to mask their significant infrastructure challenges. There are fewer doctors than needed, given the steady inflow of patients from all over the city.
In short, there’s a lot of work and barely any time for anything else. And yet, most doctors at the Bombay General Hospital seem to find time for profound epiphanies. In Mumbai Diaries S02, there are only two types of characters: the crusaders, who think aloud about their sense of duty, and the others who object.
There is also the TV anchor Mansi Hirani (Shreya Dhanwanthary) who insists that Mumbaikars inconvenienced by record-breaking rains and the city’s crumbling infrastructure is not an ‘important’ story. When a segment of her interviewing a martyr’s wife (played by Sonali Kulkarni) is cancelled – she raises her voice like someone with straight-out-of-journalism-school idealism. As much as I get her personal stake in a story she feels passionately about, I couldn’t help but marvel at her lack of professional judgment that is obtuse enough to think there can’t be two equally important news items in a story rundown.
The younger doctors – like Dr. Ajawale (played by Mrunmayee Deshpande) — are simply unable to make even a single sophisticated argument against watching their patients slowly drift away in front of their eyes, while being told to follow protocol and obey orders from senior doctors. Dr. Oberoi – the star from the trauma unit in the first season – is left to doubt his natural, life-saving instincts, after being lynched in public perception with the help of news channels and social media for his reckless ways. Raina isn’t the most gifted actor, but uses his space well to reflect Dr Oberoi’s reluctance to believe his gift, after being questioned about it over several months.
There are a couple of nice flourishes in the second season, like Konkona Sen Sharma’s Chitra Das, haunted by her abusive marriage. As it turns out, one of the members of the delegation is her abusive husband – Dr. Saurav Chandra (played by Parambrata Chattopadhyay). The track is well-designed, giving us flashbacks of his erratic behaviour, keeping us guessing as to whether he’s here to get her back, or has he evolved?
Chitra is reminded by her well-wishers of symptoms of domestic abuse – where victims often feel enamoured by sudden bursts of kindness from their abuser; it’s the ambiguity that keeps this section lively for a long time. Sen Sharma is clearly the most refined actor in this cast – and the show makes good use of her. She has an admirer in young resident Dr. Ahaan Mirza (Satyajeet Dubey), challenging the convention of an office romance.
Even if Mumbai Diaries: 26/11 wasn’t the most competent medical drama, however, what made it compelling was how it viewed a terror attack through the lens of a crumbling government hospital. The action sequences in the first season – especially of the terrorists storming a hospital – are some of the most memorable parts of the first season. In the second season – with terrorists out of the equation – the show only relies on the social justice commentary. And it’s where it seems to falter the most.
Like most web series these days, even Mumbai Diaries S02 stacks itself with social issues to be addressed. There’s a burns victim, exhibiting habits of someone using drugs. There’s an orphanage where the kids seem to be showcasing signs of sexual abuse – making the doctors suspicious, and therefore forcing them to go beyond their usual call of duty. The show even touches upon the mockery that TV news has become in recent times – deliberately doling out stories of “hope” and fetishising the “Mumbai spirit” even as dozens of locals stare death in the face. A scene that recreates the FOB collapse and the stampede triggered by it at Dadar station, is easily one of the most tense sequences in the show.
However, the show never really dwells on it for long. Mumbai Diaries might pretend to be more evolved, but it’s actually a stitched-up version of many General Hospital, E.R, Grey’s Anatomy, and Chicago P.D. episodes. At its core, Mumbai Diaries is a soap opera. It doesn’t even have the sophistication of some excellent medical dramas like House – where doctors don’t seem to be losing their cool so frequently, especially in challenging situations. The ‘doctors’ in Mumbai Diaries S02 yell at each other, plead with one another, just like the actors they are.
Towards the end of Mumbai Diaries S02, someone says: “Let’s show everyone that at Bombay General Hospital – our work does the talking.” I couldn’t help but smile a little. The sad part was that they were being earnest.