Their attention to minute details, and ability to capture the verve of a society, which is on a cusp of change, are all there. What keeps Panchayat ticking are the well-timed dialogues and situations that keep you chuckling all along.Prakash Jha: It's Challenging for filmmakers to be able to say what they have toEXCLUSIVE! Prabal Sharma-April 4, 2020.
A comedy-drama, which captures the journey of an engineering graduate Abhishek, who for lack of a better job option joins as secretary of a Panchayat office in a remote village of Uttar Pradesh.
The small-town/village drama from the Hindi hinterland has almost peaked in films, even web-series, over the last five years. Be it the attempt to create a selfie with his colleagues, or Jitendra chopping lauki and feeling sorry for himself, or the way he respectfully changes a youthful song to a more sedate number out of his deference to Pradhanji is quite endearing. Panchayat review: Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta unite after Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan to deliver a compelling village drama that is high on humour.
Though we wonder how long will he keep doing this underdog-needs-to-be-rescued roles. There is some rivalry, but again, its sole purpose is comic relief.Panchayat is a game-changer for TVF, who have been doing consistent good work in the urban premise, with offerings like Permanent Roomates, Kota Factory, Tripling etc, let’s face it, they are fluent in millennial-speak. Panchayat review: An authentic dive into rural India. Parallels can be drawn with Swades — where Shah Rukh Khan goes and lights a bulb in a village in India — and of course English August. 'Even a hardcore nit-picker will struggle to find faults in this extraordinarily crafted television series that I rate as a must watch, an … When he finds no other jobs, Abhishek takes up a government job as the secretary of a village panchayat …
We are not treated to the lush fields and everyone singing and dancing – a nod to Yashraj/DDLJ — nor are we treated to a Gangs of Wassyepur throwback, where everyone has a weapon slinging from their backs. That’s always been their calling card, and it holds true for Panchayat as well. A gram-pradhan-pati whose ringtone is “Rinkiya ke papa”; an actual gram-pradhan who is illiterate but her sass could give the ‘South-Delhi Girls’ a good run for their money; and the panchayat sachiv, who has a permanent bewildered expression on his face — all this quirk and more awaits you in Panchayat, the latest offering by Amazon Prime Video presented by TVF.
Problems in the village range from allocation of solar lights, the naming of children, deconstructing a ghost story that emanates from a bargad ka ped on the outskirts of the village, etc etc etc — and Kumar faces baptism by fire as he tries to take them on, one by one.It takes about two episodes to figure out what exactly is Panchayat trying to say, but once you decode that, it is quite a pleasant watch. But now, they have stepped into the relative unknown, they had earlier dipped their toe in the semi-rural area with season 2 of Laakhon Main Ek. He goes straight from hanging out with his friends at the mall, talking about CTCs and instagramming to the dusty village of Phulera with daily power cuts and where he has to bathe in the open at the hand pump outside the panchayat office. They seemed to have picked up whatever rural accent they were comfortable with, and rolled with it.
If nothing else you will relate to Jitendra calling up his friend Prateek (Biswapati Sarkar) to rant, given our socially distanced and quarantined times. Panchayat brings a fresh perspective to the rural narrative and it works for the most part. Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar) who is fresh out of college has somehow landed himself a government job, as Panchayat sachiv, which pays him Rs 20,000 a month. It does nod at all of this, sans the chest-thumping and preaching from a pulpit and still leaves us with a happy afterthought, that all is not lost.Panchayat incisively breaks the dual-tone presentation of the Indian small town in mainstream narratives. Added to it, the bit about naming a newborn Aarav, after Jitendra is continuing his fine form after Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan and his ‘hairan-pareshan’ expression has only gotten better.
By Priyanka Bhadani April 03, 2020 12:33 IST.
Panchayat Review: What keeps Panchayat ticking are the well-timed dialogues and situations that keep you chuckling all along. With Jitendra Kumar, Raghuvir Yadav, Chandan Roy, Faisal Malik. To experience and fall in love with the real side of our country.