In between calls from and to his daughter, Jonaci, who helped him with the editing and talks with his assistant director, Kanchan Nayak, Dr Patel settled down to a tete-a-tete on his latest creation. Dr Ambedkar, who drafted India's Constitution, first caught Dr Patel's attention when he was commissioned to do a documentary on him by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). "When I made the documentary, I found so much information about Dr Ambedkar from his friends and associates that I realised Dr Ambedkar could be a subject for a feature film," he recalls.

The film became a reality for Dr Patel when he attended the centenary celebrations meeting of the Maharashtra government. At the meeting, he was sitting next to Ms Mrinal Gore. She asked him what he was working on. Dr Patel casually remarked that he was toying with the idea of making a film on Dr Ambedkar, but the funds for the project were bothering him. "The next thing I knew was that she talked of my plans when it was her turn to speak," he says. "Mr Sharad Pawar, the then chief minister, allotted Rs 1 crore for research. Later, the then prime minister, Mr Chandrashekhar, came to know of the sanctioned amount and the film and he too contributed Rs 5 crore." Thus the venture took off.

The brief given to Dr Patel was that the film should be made on an international scale. "Since I needed experts in all the departments of the film, I went scouting for the best. Luckily for me, Ms Sooni Taraporewala was in town and I met up with her for the job of writing the script. I was also suggested the names of Mr Arun Sadhu, a renowned novelist and short story writer, and the late Daya Pawar, a sensitive Dalit poet. Together, they contributed toward the script, but the final style of the script was Ms Taraporewala's, as it had to have a uniform style."

Mai Ambedkar, Dr Ambedkar's second wife, was also consulted. "Though she lived with him only for eight years before his death, she could share her experiences with us," says Dr Patel. Copious information was however gleaned from 15 volumes of work on Dr Ambedkar by Khairmundre. The Maharashtra government has also brought out a volume of Dr Ambedkar's speeches. And Dr Patel was further helped by friends and associates of Dr Ambedkar.

Is he satisfied with the end product? "That is difficult to say," he says. "I have made a humble attempt to portray Dr Ambedkar, but it is very difficult to encapsulate a personality such as his in three hours."

Revealing his intention about the film, Dr Patel says, "Indians and foreigners must know about him like they do about Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. However, Dr Ambedkar was a much more difficult job to do for he was a voracious reader, great scholar, author, lawyer, philosopher and had several fabulous facets to his personality."

The role of the main protagonist of the film was bagged by Mammootty, the superstar from the South. Talking of his lead actor, Dr Patel said that he had always had Mammootty in mind for the role, but still scouted around the globe for other actors. "Mammootty matched Dr Ambedkar physically and the facial resemblance after the moustache was shorn off was remarkable. Though he was reluctant to do the role, after we showed him a computer generated picture, he himself was taken aback by the similarity. Mammootty has done a fabulous job. He devoted himself single-mindedly to the role and has bagged the National Award. This film will bring him international notice," avers Dr Patel. Won't the film bring the inevitable comparisons with Richard Attenborough's film, Gandhi? "Not fair," says Dr Patel. "There is no need to compare it and it should not be compared," he says forcefully.

Though films and theatre are his first love and all his films have received national and state awards and been screened in many international film festivals, Dr Patel is a paediatrician by profession and has a hospital at Daund. "It is my work with the simple, rural folk in Daund and Pune, where I studied medicine, that has shown me the treatment meted to people in the real India. However, for the past two years, I have not been in touch with my patients as I was busy with the film." Dr Patel's wife, a gynaecologist, has been beside him helping him in every way she can. And now the mantle of doctor falls on his elder daughter, Jasmine, who is studying abroad. "My younger daughter will take up films," he says.