Arjun Bijlani has finally played a doctor, just not the way you'd expect. In Chumbak, the Aatish Kapadia comedy that's been streaming on Netflix since September 10, he's a cardiac surgeon named Dr. Mikhael Oberoi who spends most of his screen time caught up in the chaos of a Chembur housing society rather than an operating theatre.

Bijlani told Bollywood Hungama the premise is what got him on board in the first place. A surgeon, sure, but dropped into situational comedy rather than a medical drama. That combination, he said, was new territory. "I've never played a doctor in this kind of space before, so it was something I was genuinely excited to explore," he said, adding that the setting created by Kapadia and his collaborator JD gave the show its texture.

Chumbak isn't built around one couple or one plot. It's an ensemble piece, several families under one roof, their lives tangled together in the way these society-set comedies usually work. Bijlani's Dr. Oberoi is paired opposite Helly Shah's Twinkle Ravjiani, an actress character navigating her own corner of the madness. Sandeepa Dhar is also part of the cast, in what she's separately described as a close-knit girl gang on set.

What Bijlani kept coming back to, though, wasn't the plot. It was the shoot itself. He described a set where scenes rarely stayed exactly as rehearsed, where someone would slip in a line or a look right before the camera rolled and the whole take would fall apart laughing. "That comfort level between the actors really helped because comedy works best when there is genuine chemistry," he said. According to him, Chumbak had plenty of it.

As for the character himself, Bijlani draws a line between Dr. Oberoi's instincts and his own. The surgeon, he says, is far more spontaneous, someone who reacts in the moment rather than thinking things through. Bijlani calls himself the opposite, someone who works things out before he commits. Where the two meet, he says, is in the commitment itself. Confidence, seriousness about the job, sticking to what you believe once you've decided it. Those, he says, carried over from him to the role.

The trickier part, by his own account, was tonal. Playing a man who's meant to be composed and clinical for a living, then dropping him into situations that strip that composure away entirely. Bijlani says finding that gap between the professional Oberoi and the flustered version the show puts him through was where the part actually got fun to play.

Chumbak is out now on Netflix. Whether Dr. Oberoi's chaos extends beyond the current run hasn't been addressed yet, and Bijlani's comments don't touch on a second season either way.