Bitter Medicine:
There is not enough outrage, when kids die after drinking substandard cough syrup. Or a pharma company is accused of manufacturing improper drugs and another of exporting faulty diabetes medicine. Corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, the nexus between the medical fraternity, bureaucrats and politicians has been exposed time and again, in films from the West, at least, if not in India. Documentaries and features like Side Effects, Pain Hustlers, Inside Big Pharma: The Dark Side of Pharmaceutical Giants, Crime of the Century, Dopesick, Painkiller, Fire In The Blood, have been brave and outspoken.
Ignorance and a misplaced trust in doctors probably means the big pharma businesses face nothing more than a light rap on the knuckles when their willful negligence comes to light. In India, add to that poverty and legal delays, and a woeful contempt for human life, and medical scandals are buried as soon as they are exposed, whistleblowers are silenced in one way or another. It is for this reason that Pill (on JioCinema), created by Raj Kumar Gupta, is an admirable effort. Co-written by Gupta, Parveez Sheikh and Jaideep Yadav, directed by Gupta, Yadav and Mahim Joshie, the densely-plotted, often naïve eight-part series is more high-minded than believable, as a group of four earnest people take on the might of Forever Care Pharma, a huge manufacturer and exporter of medicines.
In a hurry to bring drugs into the market, Forever Care Pharma, headed by glib Brahma Gill (Pawan Malhotra) and his arrogant son Ekam (Nikhil Khurana), fudge data and falsify volunteer test results. Whenever the media exposes their malpractices, the publications are either forced to retract, or competitors are blamed.
An unscheduled inspection, a hurriedly disposed file, a vigilant microbiologist and eager journalist start the unravelling of the threads of Forever Care’s power. Dr Prakash Chauhan (Riteish Deshmukh), recently promoted to the Medicine Council of India in Ghaziabad, is informed of the failed inspection at one of the pharmaceutical giant’s manufacturing plants by a newbie medicine inspector Gursimrat Kaur (Anshul Chauhan) and starts digging into their files.
Ashish Khanna (Kunj Anand), a freshly recruited employee at Forever Care, notices discrepancies in the test data and tries to flag it. Noor Khan (Akshat Chauhan), a journalist with a small newspaper, fed up with covering film stars and aspiring to be an investigative journalist, finds a file in the garbage that arouses his curiosity.
Noor’s attempts to get information from doctors is stonewalled, as is Dr Prakash’s request to his seniors to look into Forever Care Pharma’s records. Gill and his goons deal with any negative information that pops up about the company, using violence, threats or bribes. Gill’s son is about to marry the chief minister’s daughter, so the dumping of expired drugs onto the poor is easily overlooked. With multinational mergers coming up, Gill wants to clean up the company’s image (the foreigners are the usual white caricatures!) For the sake of credibility, he has hired a respected senior Dr Natarajan (Baharul Islam), who has put his conscience on hold for money and perks.
Eventually, Prakash, Gursimrat, Noor and later a traumatized Ashish get together to expose Forever Care, even if it means breaking a few rules, and eventually going to court.
Pill takes the mission of its characters very seriously, so the characters look solemn all the time, and the step-by-step collection of evidence drags the pace of the narrative. The race-against-time narrative moves as sluggishly as the good Dr Prakash’s jalopy. It is only towards the last two episodes that the show takes on the characteristics of a breathless thriller-cum-court room drama, and adds some emotions into the mix. There are some unbelievable bits, like the CM’s daughter acting as if political corruption were news to her; or the case going to the Supreme Court, which itself would take several years to get a hearing. But there are also some nice scenes that depict the relationships of the characters, and gives them some human traits—like Gursimrat’s affection for her father, or Prakash’s precocious brat and verbal spats with his nagging wife (Neha Saraf), both acknowledging at one point how they learnt to live with marital disappointment.
Though Raj Kumar Gupta’s intention to investigate the lacunae in the pharmaceutical industry and its disdain for patients’ suffering is all every well, he could have also broadened the scope of Pill a little more— the problem does not lie with one fictional company but with the system that allows real life Forever Care Pharma to go unpunished. (A touch of Hansal Mehta, perhaps.)
Riteish Deshmukh carefully keeps his UP accept throughout, but also plays Prakash almost too stiffly, as if the Hippocratic Oath on his wall runs through his mind in a loop. Akshat Chauhan brings in energy and cheer while his cohorts never let go of their frowns. Pawan Malhotra, seasoned performer that he is, plays Gill with ease, as an evil charmer in the boardroom and solicitous son at home with his ailing mother.
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
