Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1990). Until I saw this film, the finest Indian movie I’d encountered was the Malayalam film ‘Drishyam (2013)’, starring Mohanlal—a film so tense it nearly stopped my heartbeat! Even if Tapan Sinha had made only this one film, ‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’, in his entire career, he would have achieved immortality through this work alone. Pankaj Kapur’s performance as the doctor is a priceless treasure for world cinema. The precision with which our national character has been portrayed in this film defies written description. If I had the power, I would make watching this film mandatory for every person connected with bureaucracy. The film shows how a talent remains deprived of due recognition throughout life because of the jealousy, ignorance, and neglect of the state, its citizens, and the bureaucracy. The most important line from the Charyapada, in my view, is: “The deer is enemy to its own flesh.” Meaning, the deer is hunted precisely for its delicious meat. The less appetizing one’s flesh, the safer one remains from danger.
This film reveals how the state and bureaucracy view brilliant and talented individuals with such hatred, and how they humiliate them whenever they get the chance—or create opportunities to do so. A bureaucrat can work most happily in service if he remains ordinary like everyone else. A genius can never serve peacefully and comfortably within the bureaucracy. A genius is the most despised person in any bureaucratic system. Actions that go completely unnoticed when performed by others result in severe punishment and persecution when undertaken by him. Common people are even more vicious, reckless, and ignorant. Without any reason, they attack geniuses in various ways. A line from Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘King Lear’ comes to mind: “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.” While those committing wrongs face no consequences, the reasons for which I’m being punished are hardly reasons for punishment at all. This is exactly what happened in Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay’s life. For the “unforgivable crime” of possessing immense talent, this Bengali scientist was humiliated at every step by his colleagues and the bureaucracy, transferred arbitrarily through abuse of power, and faced every possible obstacle in his work. The state and some jealous individuals did everything necessary to halt the work he was doing for human welfare. Unable to bear human cruelty and persecution, Subhash Mukhopadhyay chose the path of self-destruction. His suicide note read: “I could no longer wait each day for when I might die of a heart attack.”
The revered writer Ramapada Chaudhuri wrote ‘Abhimanyu’ about his life and work. ‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’ is the film adaptation of that novel. What an extraordinary film this is! I have rarely seen a film with such intense and uncompromising commentary. Why did Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay have to die? For what crime? Let me explain briefly.
Scientist Subhash Mukhopadhyay was the principal figure behind the birth process of Durga, the world’s second and India’s first test-tube baby. He informed the press about this achievement. The accusation came: how dare a mere doctor have the audacity to inform the press before informing the government? When he wanted to deliver a lecture about his research at an international scientific conference, the West Bengal government imposed a ban on his foreign travel. His research results were not allowed to be published in international journals. A five-member investigation committee was formed to probe this reproductive discovery-crime, headed by a radio physiologist. The rest included a gynecologist, psychologist, physicist, and neurologist. There was no scientist or researcher in the field being investigated. He was summoned before the committee and subjected to ultimate humiliation. Some incompetent people kept asking incompetent questions. None of these five committee members had the slightest understanding of modern reproductive science research, and Subhash Mukhopadhyay had to bear the consequences.
Finally, the committee submitted its report: what Dr. Mukhopadhyay had done was worthless; all his research was fraudulent. What great scientists couldn’t accomplish, this doctor supposedly achieved without government support! His years of tireless effort, dedication, and success were obliterated in an instant. Dr. Subhash was transferred to Bankura Medical College. In 1980, he suffered a heart attack and was then transferred to R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital. Due to these repeated relocations, all research related to reproductive physiology came to a complete halt. In the second week of June 1981, as part of ongoing punishment, the West Bengal government’s health department transferred Subhash to the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology as professor of electro-physiology in the eye department, despite his PhD degree and research being in completely different fields. This anger from the authorities was the rage of the incompetent. His crime was that the state and his contemporary doctors lacked either the capability or the goodwill to understand what he had accomplished. The state simply cannot tolerate anyone who is ahead of others or ahead of their time. Frustrated by governmental bureaucratic curses and continuous ridicule and humiliation by West Bengal’s jealous medical community, Subhash committed suicide by hanging at his Kolkata residence on June 19, 1981, just a few days after his final transfer. He was fifty years old.
The world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, was born just 67 days before Durga’s birth. The date was July 25, 1978. The architect behind this was British researcher Robert Geoffrey Edwards. For this epoch-making discovery, he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2010. Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay could have shared that prize. But what did this unfortunate scientist receive instead? Humiliation, persecution, defamation. The bureaucracy and medical community forced him to choose the path of self-destruction. Is this not murder, with state patronage? Where talent and genius are not valued but instead face deprivation, reproach, exploitation, and all forms of oppression and non-cooperation—being born in such a place is the greatest sin. Subhash was born at the wrong time in the wrong place.
After his death, Dr. Subhash received recognition throughout the world, including in his own country. On August 16, 1986, another Indian scientist, T.C. Anand Kumar, succeeded in creating another test-tube child, Harsha Chandra. The Indian government gave Anand Kumar the title of India’s first successful test-tube baby researcher. In 1997, when Anand Kumar came to attend a scientific conference in Kolkata, Subhash Mukhopadhyay’s invaluable research documents came into his hands. After examining those documents and speaking with Durga’s family, Anand Kumar realized that Subhash Mukhopadhyay was indeed India’s first test-tube baby creator. Through Anand Kumar’s earnest efforts, Dr. Subhash Mukhopadhyay was officially recognized as India’s first successful test-tube baby researcher. A favorite song of mine by Santosh Sengupta echoes in my mind: “To those you never gave garlands in life, why do you bring flowers in death? Those whose faces you never looked upon, why do tears flow for them today?”
The story of ‘Ek Doctor Ki Maut’ follows similar lines. Here, Dr. Dipankar Roy had discovered a vaccine for leprosy. After ten years of tireless, relentless, incredible labor. In making this discovery, he couldn’t fulfill his duties to his wife, keeping himself away from all worldly pleasures and joys, spending sleepless nights after nights. Year after year. The marital relationship between Dr. Roy and his wife Sima, as portrayed in the film, is a masterful reflection of the daily realities faced by a genius’s wife in running a household, and how she continues to provide all kinds of support and cooperation day after day out of love for her husband. The silent sacrifice and role of a wife behind any achievement of her husband is undeniable. In the film, the scientist doesn’t commit suicide, but before the investigation committee, he raises both hands and says, “I surrender!” This is not an admission of defeat, but rather an intense expression of compassion and disgust toward a broken system controlled by some high-ranking and highly educated fools—jealous, arrogant, incompetent, and injudicious bureaucrats and doctors. He had realized that he wasn’t called there to be investigated, but to be destroyed. The bureaucracy and jealous medical establishment continuously humiliated and persecuted him; he wasn’t allowed to prepare his research papers on time, preventing him from publishing his papers in international journals.
Two American doctors who discovered the leprosy vaccine after him received credit as discoverers before he did. The worldly fruit of so much sacrifice and inhuman labor was zero! That night, he killed all the animals in his lab—the ones on which he had been conducting research for so many years. These animals were like children to him. The dead bodies of rats and other animals arranged in rows on the table, with him sitting there dejected and melancholy—this scene evokes thoughts of his spiritual death. Invited by the Johan Anderson Foundation to work as a researcher in a foreign lab, this proud man left his country. While watching this film and after it ended, a line from Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ came to mind: “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”