Konkana Sen Sharma opened up about her latest project ‘Mumbai Diaries 26/11’. Talking about her role in the series and what attracted her to the project, the actress said, “I am playing Chitra Das. She is the Social Services Director of this Government Hospital in Mumbai. She is not a doctor but she’s from a medical background. The show is in an unusual setting. I would say it’s a medical drama rather than a medical thriller because this set is this government hospital, Bombay general hospital with the backdrop of 26/11, which has been fictionalised. For the first time, we’re seeing it from the point of view of the doctors, so it’s really the personal lives of the doctors, the challenges of working in a government hospital set against the unprecedented events of 26/11, where nobody is really prepared or nobody is ever trained to deal with this kind of circumstance. For me, when I read the script, I found it very unusual. I have never played a doctor. I have not really seen even a medical drama like this and today, after Covid, we all have a newfound appreciation for our frontline workers and the difficulties that they go through, so for us, it’s a homage to the frontline workers.”
When asked how important is to tell this story through their point of view and the message that the series sends out, Konkana expressed, “Yes, I do think it’s very important. Although it may be entertaining or binge-worthy, it is a thriller. It’s an unusual kind of setting and it is very important to remember this. Particularly, in a post-Covid or at least, now that we have all been through the pandemic we have even seen how doctors have suffered. There have been attacks on doctors. They often have to deal with a lot of very difficult circumstances, whether they are shortages of PPE kits or working in the government hospitals, where the situation is not always ideal and we have a storage of beds or equipment supplies, etc. We sometimes forget that the doctors are not gods and for them to perform, they need the infrastructure. They need the support also. They are dealing with their own issues and have to deal with these kinds of things, so this is very relevant, particularly today.”
Speaking of 26/11 and where she was during those days, Konkana shared, “I was actually not in Mumbai. We had driven outside of Mumbai. The news was trickling in. It was very shocking. What happened is, initially we also didn’t have a handle on exactly what was going on because there were events in multiple locations. It went on over three days, we also didn’t know, what and how it’s going to unfold. It was not a contained one-off incident. It was a very insecure and frightening time. It was very confusing. Is it safe for us in our group or we should drive back to Mumbai? What we should do?! That took us some time, then when we came back, it was a time of shock. We were all in shock and disbelief and everybody, whether somebody on the street or a neighbour, it was very shocking. There was a sense of this very uneasy kind of stillness that was over the whole city. There was a very heavy silence that something like this could have happened in Mumbai. We never know when something would happen again, that was the fear.”