CAST: Karan Kundrra, Naghma Rizwan 

DIRECTED BY: Ken Ghosh

In 1962 when women were not allowed to be so progressive, a girl made it to calcutta medical school to study to be a doctor. Where all other women in that school were studying to be nurses, she was the only female doctoral candidate.

Progressive start to this story of the times when Calcutta was the center of the world. It was innovative, aspirational, entrepreneurial and modern. Truly the top city in that hemisphere with its culturally superior demographic in a permissive society of educated hoi polloi.

Handsome 60’s avatar of Karan Kundra is a golden hearted, lochinvar of sorts named Ronobir Chatterjee who flirts with women of all genera, abhors commitment and apparently doesn’t do things he commits to.

Kusum Ganguly, on the other hand, deftly played by Naghma Rizwan, plays the nerdy,ambitious, bold yet pristine character of Kusum Ganguly, who despite her bold foot forward, is a novice that things not experienced.

Including her attraction for Ronobir. She understands him, judges him, knows his phobia, yet falls for him and gets pregnant in the process of falling in love with him. His reaction to her situation is to abandon her and run away to England.

Flawed character graphs add to the reality of characters and the swift deviation from the flawless, superlative characterization of the lead roles towards characters marred by imperfections is indeed a sign of maturing of the story telling in Indian television content.

The racy parts of the story are definitely a Ken Ghosh forte, however, the depth of the emotional struggle for both Kusum and Ronobir, when they meet again against the backdrop of the 1971 war in a hospital for the injured soldiers.

We wouldn’t like to comment on the authenticity of the events in the backdrop of the story. However well researched, the naxalites, the cholera pandemic and other events resulting in medical emergencies for the team of doctors, seem inadequately reprised for the sake of the emotional thread of the story, yet seem incommensurate with the needs of story telling in this case.

10 years later, working together, Ronobir with a kid sans a wife and Kusum engaged to her medical school friend Ratan, who had helped her abort the pregnancy earlier, the emotional content is high yet not presented with lucidity.

Yet, the audience is kept waiting for the next season as the first season ends on a note of Ronobir saving Kusum’s life in the battlefield.

Hopefully the saga will continue.