The Good Karma Hospital

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                Sometimes I need a break from mysteries.  As much as I love mysteries, it is good to watch a TV show or movie where people are simply living their lives and not figuring out who killed or hurt someone.  Watching these people go through tough times isn’t always easy, even if it is fictional, but it is a nice break from murder.    

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                After her fiancé leaves her, Dr. Ruby Walker (Amrita Acharia) decides to leave her English life behind her and move to India.  She expects to work at a fancy, state-of-the-art clinic, but ends up at the very rural Good Karma Hospital instead.  This hospital is unlike anywhere else she has worked.  With few doctors, a constant shortage of supplies, and a continuous flow of patients, the work is hard and the hours are long.  To make things even more difficult, Ruby keeps having to battle the differences between India and England.  Some of the differences are strictly about how the hospital is run.  Others are about the Indian culture and the laws she must follow.

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       Running the hospital is Dr. Lydia Fonseca (Amanda Redman).  A no-nonsense woman, Lydia comes off as cold and uncaring.  In reality she is very caring.  She just doesn’t have the time or patience to suffer fools, whether it is a patient or member of staff.  This mentality does cause conflict between Lydia and her boyfriend, Greg McConnell (Neil Morrissey).  A bar owner, Greg acts as though he is more of a free spirit than Lydia, when really he secretly wants Lydia to be more committed to him than she is.

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                Dr. Ram Nair (Darshan Jariwala) is the senior doctor on staff.  If anything were to happen to Lydia, he would most likely be the one to take her place.  Ram also serves as Lydia’s confidante; on the rare occasions she looks for one.  Otherwise, Ram spends a great deal of time looking out for his son AJ (Sagar Radia).  An ambulance driver, AJ spends his days hitting on women, and getting in trouble over them.  Having married a woman who he continues to love even after her death, Ram would love to see AJ settled down with a good wife and career of his own.

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             Neither Lydia nor Ram are seen with patients too often.  Most of those duties fall to Ruby and Dr. Gabriel Varma (James Krishna Floyd).  In some ways it is surprising how many patients Ruby and Gabriel manage to see because of how much time they spend disagreeing with each other.  Part of this behavior is because Gabriel did not like Ruby from the start, and he had zero qualms about showing it.  He and Ruby freely get into arguments, making it seem they will never get along.

                But, as with Lydia, there is far more to Gabriel than meets the eye.  His demeanor is cold and detached, yet underneath there is a kind and caring man.  This really comes out when an English woman named Maggie Smart (Phyllis Logan) becomes his patient.

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                Maggie is in India for her daughter’s wedding.  She already knows she is terminally ill, but hasn’t told anyone.  When she faints before the ceremony, Gabriel is called to attend to her.  He figures out Maggie is sick, and encourages her to at least tell her husband, Paul (Phillip Jackson).  Then, as Maggie refuses to go back to England for more intensive care, Gabriel agrees to treat her while she is in India.  This is against his better judgement, but Maggie is determined to not leave.  She wants to spend her remaining time with her husband, enjoying her life.

                The final person we get to know at the hospital is Mari Rodriguez (Nimmi Harasgama).  Mari is in charge of the orderlies and nurses, instructing them on what needs to be done.  She is also on hand if the doctor’s need anything.  In essence, Mari is the person who keeps life at the hospital organized.  Truly, I don’t know what the rest of them would do without her.

                With every episode there is a new set of patients to deal with.  Some walk away happy, while others have sad endings.  Then there are those whose endings are unknown.  Except for Maggie, I don’t remember a single patient who was in more than one episode.  This leaves the fate of so many unclear.  As a viewer, this can be disappointing, yet it is probably what happens to doctors every day in real life.  Once a patient is out of their care, they don’t know what happens.

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                In the meantime, the members of the hospital have their own personal things to go through.  Ruby’s ex-fiancé shows up.  Then the father who abandoned her reappears.  Ruby also must figure out her feelings for Gabriel, who is having trouble dealing with his feelings for Ruby as well.

                For Mari, her life starts to fall apart.  Her husband leaves her because they have been unable to have a baby.  Once he is gone, Mari gets the opportunity to adopt a child, only things do not go as she had hoped.

                Life goes much better for Ram than it does for the others.  While he does worry about AJ, he also finds a new woman to love.

                AJ starts to worry about himself.  After a girl leads him on, he begins to wonder exactly what he wants to do with his life.  His experiences at the hospital help him make that decision. 

                Paul returns to India after Maggie dies.  While there, Greg takes on the responsibility of helping him get back into the world.  Still grieving over his wife, Paul is a very lost man.  Greg is willing to do what ever he can to make Paul live again.

                Then there is Lydia.  For the most part, Lydia’s concerns all have to do with the hospital.  It is where she spends most of her time.  Every once in a while, there’s a situation with Greg or concern over how she handled a something.  Other than that, for the most part, her concerns are hospital related.  Even when events happen outside of the hospital, they end up being hospital related.  That’s why, when Lydia isn’t dealing with something directly involving the hospital, she spends most of her time helping everyone else keep their lives in order.

                So far there have been only two seasons of The Good Karma Hospital.  I believe there is a third coming out, and I look forward to its release.  While most things wrap up pretty cleanly at the end of each season, there are some things left unresolved.  Not big cliff hangers, or anything.  More like what’s going to happen between Ruby and Gabriel?  And will Mari ever get the child she so dearly wants?  Things along those lines.  Nothing big, but enough to keep me coming back for another season.

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