Vidya as India's First Lady doctor?

The actress is Ananth Mahadevan's first choice for his upcoming biopic.

After setting the cash registers jingling with The Xpose, director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan who is on a collision course with star producer Himesh Reshammiya on his remuneration for the sequel, is setting the stage for a biopic on India's first lady doctor Rakmabai. Vidya Balan is his first choice to play the protagonist.

Ananth confirms this saying, "I met Vidya at her Juhu Tara Road apartment recently. She is caught between two biopics, Rajiv Menon's biopic on Carnatic singer and Bharat Ratna MS Subbulakshmi and Rakmabai's . "I'm really keen on her but I don't want to push her. I will meet her one more time and maybe show her the biopic I'm making on the freedom fighter Gauri Hari Das. If things don't work out, I'll consider someone else."

Meanwhile, Menon's film has run into legal problems with Dr M P Somaprasad who has the written consent and rights to make a film on Subbulakshmi getting an injunction order against Rajiv. So there's hope for Ananth, who during the course of his research discovered that while Anandi Joshi was India's first qualified doctor, she never practiced medicine and died of smallpox.

Dr Rakmabai, who at the age of 11 was married off to 18-year-old Dadaji Bhikaji, had a case of 'restitution of conjugal rights' filed against her by her husband after 10 years of living apart. The court offered her two options: Go to her husband's house or go to jail. In 1888, the two arrived at a settlement to save her from imprisonment following which Rakmabai was the first Indian woman to go to London to study medicine. "She became a qualified doctor in 1894 and returned to practise medicine here," Ananth adds.

He has even met with her grandniece Dr Mohini Varde and bought the rights to her book, Dr Rakmabai: The Odyssey. "That's what the film will also be titled," says Annath, who plans to roll in December with a schedule in England.

source: Mumbai Mirror