The life of Dr Bhattacharya, not unlike our own

There was a request from some of you to talk on how some of the characters were conceived.
In that series I begin first with Dr Bhattacharya....

please do read and raise questions and also please give your own views. In all of us there is an element of Dr bhattacharya.


The rationalist, Dr Bhattacharya

Who is Dr Bhattacharya?

He is educated, suave, successful and one who seem to have all the answers.

He was born, like many of us, among believers. He was also, as most of us , eager for recognition, hungry for success. He was also restless enough to follow his dream relentlessly.

In the process he makes sacrifices but succeeds. Makes a name for him and lives a very satisfying life, a kind of life we all aspire to.

I was very comfortable with this character. We all can see the reflection of our ambition in Dr Bhattacharya. We admire the way he would have overcome his handicaps and succeeded in America where excellence thrives.


And then suddenly without a warning, life changes its color to turn gray. Dr Bhattacharya is diagnosed with lung cancer. This takes a heavy toll on the first system of which he is a part of, his family. His wife decides to detach herself from this suffering and leaves him to deal with his own destiny. This is what breaks Dr Bhattacharya. He was scientifically trained to accept death and therefore was willing to cope with it but he was not prepared for the dark response from someone who was an integral part of himself.

By contrast, his daughter, Anjali, out of sheer love for her father abandons her studies and ambitions and accompanies him to Banaras when Dr Bhattacharya returns to connect with the soil where he was born. This act of his was not rational, not even emotional but more like a spiritual quest unknown even to him. In the film we have tried to demonstrate the colors, life can take and our non preparedness to face them.

In Dr Bhattacharya’s life we see peaks and troughs of love and self pity, devotion and betrayal, rationality and faith.

It’s a role which was created to show us all a mirror to reflect, provoke and prepare for what can come to be faced in any one of our lives.

For, remember, we can not absolutely control what happens in our lives but we can certainly control our response to face whatever may happen. It is for this reason that the mystics talk about living and loving the life with a sense of detachment.

It is in that sense, that, we alone hold the key to the destiny of our lives that we create a heaven or hell.