Cinema not school but imparts values, spreads awareness on medical conditions: Dimple Kapadia

New Delhi, Nov 16: Actor Dimple Kapadia says cinema is “not a school” but still imparts values and spreads awareness about medical conditions and other issues.
Kapadia was speaking to PTI on the sidelines of an event here on Wednesday to mark the 25th anniversary of India’s first liver transplant.
Asked what role cinema can play in raising awareness on medical conditions, the actor said, “I am sure cinema does whatever it can, in its own way, sort of spreading awareness about every aspect of life, not just medicine… I can say this for myself, having grown up seeing cinema all my life. There are some great values that come and they just get imbibed… And, it gets imbibed because you are bombarded with good values.”
“That is what our cinema is all about, actually. I think that is what I got from it, to do for others, do your best, so much one has learned from cinema without actually trying (to preach)… it’s not a school, it’s not preaching. But it imparts a lot. And I hope it will go on like this,” Kapadia, 66, added.
Indian cinema history is filled with movies that highlight various types of medical issues, often using them as a plot device to drive the narrative of the stories.
Films such as “Sadma” (1983), starring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi, revolved around amnesia, while the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer “Paa” (2009) was a story about a child with a rare genetic disorder called progeria.
The plot of “Anand”, a 1971 classic starring Rajesh Khanna and Bachchan, revolved around lymphosarcoma, a type of cancer.
Kapadia attended the event to felicitate Sanjay Kandasamy, the receiver of India’s first-ever successful liver transplant on the 25th anniversary of the historic operation that was conducted at an Apollo hospital in Delhi.
In 1998, a team of doctors performed a liver transplant on Tamil Nadu native Kandasamy, who was 20 months old at that time. Now a doctor himself, Kandasamy had received a portion of liver from his father. He and his parents attended the event.
One-and-half-year-old Prisha — the recipient in Apollo hospital’s 500th paediatric liver transplant surgery — also attended the event with her parents, who hail from Bihar. (PTI)