While fighting COVID caused operational challenges, director of Junglee Pictures’ upcoming film Doctor G, Anubhuti Kashyap, had a tough time scouting for locations to shoot the movie, which stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Rakul Preet in lead roles. On the one hand, the prep sessions had to be largely conducted virtually to ensure the safety of the actors and technicians involved. On the other hand, medical campuses in Madhya Pradesh refused to allow the shoot owing to a surge in Coronavirus cases during the summer of 2021.

Eventually, the film, which has Ayushmann playing Doctor Uday Gupta, who unwillingly lands up being the only male student in the gynaecology department of a medical college, was shot partially at Allahabad University in Prayagraj.

Talking about the location hunting process, director Anubhuti says, “We wanted to shoot in Bhopal and surrounding areas, but Coronavirus just cut our access to these campuses. Madhya Pradesh has interesting structures and institutes, but we couldn’t procure permission. In fact, we had finalised a location in Indore, which fell through at the last minute because of a surge in COVID cases on the campus. We had originally written the film to be set in Lucknow. We had also conducted recce in parts of Uttar Pradesh like Kannauj, Lucknow and the surrounding areas. Allahabad University had that Victorian structure which we had loved. I wanted something like that since the epicentre of our story originally was the King George Medical College campus in Lucknow. So, we decided to shoot at the Allahabad University campus.”

Haasil, starring Jimmy Sheirgill and Irrfan Khan, which had hit the screens in 2003, was the last film that was shot on this campus in 2002. Elaborating on getting the necessary permission to shoot Doctor G, Anubhuti shares, “It took a lot of convincing, plenty of paperwork and written assurances that nothing would be damaged or changed on the campus. We had to identify the rooms and assure them that we wouldn’t make any structural changes, harm the stone walls, floors and ceilings. We made so many rounds of the place. When the new Vice Chancellor stepped in, we got our permission because she was cool with what we wanted to do, and she wanted to do good for the university, too. Some of the rooms were beautiful and had been unused for years. Like there were sequences shot in an old library that had unused furniture piled up to the ceiling. The university had not seen a film shoot in 20 years. Haasil (directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia) is the last film shot there. After that, the university stopped allowing shoots, so Doctor G is the first to have entered the place in years.”

She further adds, “The university was particular about every inch of space that we used for the shoot, and they were very happy that we had kept our word till the last moment of the shoot. We were so cautious of things. Every once in a while, they had people visiting the sets and hanging around. The other departments that were working would also drop by during our shoot. The university officials and professors were a really friendly bunch.”

The medical campus comedy also stars Shefali Shah and Sheeba Chadha in pivotal roles.

Doctor G releases in the theatres on October 14.