Dilchand’s family willing to cooperate if his story is narrated on screen

KOLKATA: After his heart transplant,

Dilchand

Singh has now become an inspiration for Bengal’s film and television industry. While Dilchand is still recuperating at Fortis hospital, his brother-in-law has expressed his willingness to help if anyone wanting to narrate this story on the small or big screen. That’s reason enough for

Tollywood

to make a beeline to want to attempt a biopic or explore heart transplant related themes.

“Till the transplant happened, we didn’t even know that such a procedure can be done. If someone comes forward to share this story in a film, we will cooperate,” said Dilchand’s brother-in-law

Bhim Singh

.

Such a comment has inspired director Arindam Sil to approach Dilchand’s family. “When I was reading his story, I found it extremely cinematic. Very few Bengali films have explored medical science in details. I want to get in touch with his family for procuring the rights,” Sil said.

Director Atanu Ghosh would want to make a documentary on Dilchand’s survival tale. “I’d want to explore what went on in the mind of the family members of the donor and recipient. However, the problem is to get funding for such a project,” Ghosh said.

Script writer Leena Gangopadhyay, who has helmed megaserials like “Andarmahal” and “Ishtikutum”, has shown how patients can bounce back after cancer. After Dilchand’s heart transplant, she now has the “courage” to use such a track involving heart transplant in her scripts. “The heart is such an important organ and has all the elements for being used creatively in a script. This will also help create awareness on the issue,” she added.

Incidentally, Prosenjit Chatterjee had acted in a Hindi film titled “Traffic” which was adapted from a Malayalam film based on a real-life heart transplant case. The donor in “Traffic” as well as the one in Dilchand’s case had both met with a road accident that had left them brain-dead. In “Traffic”, Chatterjee had played a superstar whose daughter needed a heart transplant. “After playing this character, I understand the helplessness of a family when a member needs an organ to survive. Cinema leaves a big impact on the lives of viewers. I wish, Bengal comes forward with more such scripts based on heart transplant,” Chatterjee said.

In fact, script writer Padmanabha Dasgupta is keen to do that too. In “Anubrato Bhalo Achho?”, Dasgupta had explored the emotions of partners of terminally ill patients. “I had wanted to write a script on heart transplant. Then, I watched ‘Traffic’. I was moved but couldn’t think of an approach while writing a script based on heart transplant,” Dasgupta said.

Hollywood has never felt inadequate while handing heart transplant as a theme. From using true stories of recipients to exploring emotional changes after a transplant – Hollywood has done it all. In Joby Harold’s “Awake”, a wealthy young man undergoing heart transplant surgery discovers that the surgical team intends to murder him. In “21 Grams”, Alejandro González Iñárritu explores how a freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician needing a heart transplant, a grieving mother, and a born-again ex-con. Nick Cassavetes’ “John Q.” is about how a man takes a hospital emergency room hostage when his insurance won’t cover his son’s heart transplant. Clint Eastwood’s “Blood Work” shows how a retired

FBI

agent, still recovering from a heart transplant, returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer. Even racism is tackled in James D. Parriott’s “Heart Condition” where a racist cop receives a heart transplant from a lawyer of colour, who returns as a ghost to ask the cop to help take down the men who murdered him.

After reading about Dilchand’s transplant, Dasgupta is now inspired to think of new plotlines worth exploring in Tollywood. “I feel inspired and want to look at the untapped angles concerning matters of the heart,” he said.

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