Dr G: Dada Kondke styled double entendre makes a grand comeback

It comes as a surprise to know that Dr G is directed by a woman. The jokes, if we may call them that, are directed at women’s anatomy. And the big punchline is that a man is trying to make his presence felt in the field of gynaecology.

I don’t know why that should surprise the film’s writer. Statistics prove there are more male gynaecologists in India than females. Maybe romcoms are meant to twist facts.

Ayushmann Khurrana is back to do one more out-of-the-box comedy, a sex comedy, to be precise. Ayushmann doing a sex-related out-of-the comedy is by now as big a surprise as Mahipal doing a mythological or Shah Rukh Khan playing Rahul.

In Doctor G the desperate eagerness to explore unconventional routes lands Khurrana in what looks like a very uncomfortable situation of male toxicity where the doctor wants ‘Ortho’ but he is forced to take ‘Gyno’, that is to say, instead of becoming an Ortho Doc he is trusted with a less ortho-dox department: he becomes an Auraton Wali Doctor instead of Ortho Wali Doctor.

“How can I cure a body part that I don’t have?” Ayushmann deadpans in the trailer.

This is supposed to be the height of hilarity in a film that seems to think that women’s anatomy is a territory for laughter and comedy. In the trailer of Doctor G, the jokes about the anatomy flow non-stop.

The one that had me gawking and gagging in disbelief had a man visiting Dr G’s clinic with his wife about her inability to conceive.

“I have aimed (nishaana saadha hai) 116 times in one year,” the man brags.

“Does he not know the right place or does he barge into the wrong place?” Khurrana mock-whispers.

Honestly, I think this is the crudest exchange seen on screen in a long time. And that it’s coming from a doctor makes it unacceptably irresponsible. Is this gender insensitivity or just an attempt to revive the raucous ribaldry of Dada Kondke’s cinema?

Either way , this kind of licenced licentiousness where mainstream actors with a high recall value indulge in cheap shots for laughter, must stop. Ayushmann Khurrana seems to think his films work only when they are unorthodox and sexed-up. And he may be right. His last release Anek had no sex and it bombed miserably.

But he must keep in mind the profile of his fan base. Kids love Ayushmann Khurrana. Jokes about women’s body parts, which also featured prominently in his other recent romcom Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui are not what the PG audience feels with comfortable with.

Doctor G is not quite the right fit. Doctor PG would have been more like it. But let’s not judge the film by the trailer.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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