Happy to help

The former lead scientist at a pharmaceutical giant who helped make a drug instrumental in treating black fungus is now using scientific formulae to pursue his literary dreams

Bedtime stories often help shorten the empty time between when you get between the sheets and when you drift off to sleep. While fairytales and fables have been the norm for most people in their  childhood, Ajinkya Bhasme was admittedly an exception. “I found run-of-the-mill stories too fantastical and therefore, unrelatable,” he says. Since there is no one -size-that-fits-all when it comes to sleep, his mother, a criminal lawyer, began weaving stories rooted in her own experiences, all of them, deliciously dangerous. “Having dealt with sociopaths and murderers, she narrated in a way that was intriguing yet acceptable to a child. I don’t know how she did it,” he laughs. So, the threat for a young Bhasme was never, ‘Go to sleep or else the monster will come for you. It was more like, ‘the child abductor might come for you’. “And that was a good enough threat because there are such people around.”

The 30-year-old is glad that he turned out just fine despite his appetite for morbid stories. At age 12, he published his first novel titled Boo in the well of dangers. “In that book, I created a fictional world called ‘the non existing island’ where there is magic, darkness and joy,” he shares. Running  parallel to his literary leanings was his scientific pursuit. After acquiring a degree in chemical engineering from IIT Bombay, he went to work at pharmaceutical firm Dr Reddy’s Lab for five years. As the lead scientist specialising in Mathematical Modelling and Simulation for the pharmaceutical company, he became part of the team that created Amphotericin B, an antifungal medication used for leishmaniasis, which was also administered to patients with mucormycosis or black fungus during the second wave of the Cornovirus pandemic in India. “Back in 2014, when we started work on Amphotericin B, who knew that it would become the drug of choice in the treatment of mucormycosis six years later. It was tremendously challenging and stressful to create it because it involved a complex process. I remember we even messed up a batch during the making. Finally, when it turned out right, I was proud.”

During his stint at Dr Reddy’s, Bhasme expanded his side hustle. A trained kathak and contemporary style dancer, he began offering dance classes. Hyderabad’s eight-year-old Jia Thakur, who  won the Dance India Dance championship in 2018, is one of his students. “My boss at the time read my earlier book and urged me to take up writing more seriously. So, I decided to take a true incident and build  a story around it.” His novel, As Death Stared Back, revolves around Renuka Shinde and Seema Mohan Gavit, half-sisters convicted of the killing of five children and the kidnapping of 13 others between 1990 and 1996. The kidnapped children have never been found. Shinde and Gavit also acquired the dubious distinction of being the first women to be handed a death sentence in 2011. Last week, there was a twist in the tale when the Bombay High Court commuted the death sentence of the two sisters to life imprisonment. They are currently lodged in Yerawada Central Prison. “I pursued the story much like a journalist; I went to the prison, traced their connections, met with lawyers like Ujwal Nikam to understand the case better.” Bhasme’s idea was to explore the psychology of criminals, and learn more about what motivates someone to commit the darkest of crimes. “These women, in the words of Nikam, have stone-cold eyes. They have also harassed fellow prisoners, which is why they are now in solitary confinement. But there’s no remorse. How does the conscience die?” 

According to Bhasme, he went about the novel as he would with a scientific project: created a questionnaire, collected data, analysed it, drew inferences and then got down to writing it. His latest work, 7 hours at Bhata Road, has been chosen as Amazon’s bestseller of 2020, and is being made into a film featuring Vatsal Seth and Ishita Seth.

Over the years, Bhasme has been involved in the making of API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient), the biologically active component of a drug product (tablet, capsule, injectable) that produces the intended effects, and its formulation. His goal is clear: both his writing and scientific experiments need to have a social impact. “While the medicines have an obvious health impact, I’m using books as a means to create awareness about the mind. I even earned a diploma in forensic psychology and psychotherapy for this.” 

His Instagram account @bhasmewords features comics around mental health issues, and it’s not uncommon for him to receive SOS and DMs (direct messages) from followers.  “I’m not a therapist. I respond by guiding them to the right professionals. I’m just a guy who is always happy to help.”

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