5-6/August/2022. Watched.
My rating: 9/10.
As soon as I heard my friend, Sahil, praise this show a few months ago, I had added it to my watch list. But that's the thing about watch lists, they have no order to them. Its very fortunate that I dove into it yesterday because I was in the perfect mood for something like it.
Panchayat consists of 2 seasons, 8 episodes each and I ended up watching 11 of them in a day. It follows a young man named Abhishek, who ends up moving to a village in Uttar Pradesh named Phulera where he is appointed as the secretary in a panchayat (village council). Once there, he discovers the colourful characters that inhabit Phulera. As frustrated as though he is leaving his urban life behind (even going as far as to claiming it a village of idiots), he begins to care about his fellow villagers and even falls for a girl there.Yes, we've seen these stories of assimilation but not quite like this before.
Yes, its technically a subpar production. The scenes don't flow together, its over-scored, the melodrama infests a moment or two, the editing is lackluster, the sound design distracts more than it immerses, the blocking never gets creative... there are a million flaws to it. But, just as Sahil warned, watching it to dissesct it's technicalities is just the wrong approach to it. If you're doing so, then you completely missed the point.
The show's strength lies in it's characters, dialogues and the warm sense of community that it creates. Its a comfort show, a hangout series. And it captures the intricacies of the rural life so accurately that it just makes me smile.
For instance, in the first conversation that
Abhishek has with his colleagues, he learns that even though the village
head is a woman, she stays at home and her husband is acts as the real
head. And he is baffled by it. Believe it or not, that's almost verbatim
dialogue that I had with a former pradhaan who had the same arrangement
with his wife. And there are a lot of such scenes in it which shines
light on some very real issues that we have.
The performances here are, for the most part, pitch perfect. Like most of us, I first came across Jitendra Kumar (Abhishek) back in 2020 in a show called Kota Factory in which he played a teacher named Jeetu. He rose to fame with Jeetu Bhaiya and then I didn't thought of him much. Now, as Abhishek, he is great but he does falter a bit during some intense scenes where he has to act with the experienced actors, Neena Gupta and Raghubir Yadav.
Raghubir and Neena stole the show for me. The
little gestures, the little breaks, repetitions in their voice they
implemented, brought the characters to life for me. And that attention
to detail can be noticed in the rest of the cast as well. Chandan Roy,
Faisal Malik, Prateek Pachauri, Pankaj Jha...
Like, if I wanted to show someone what people in my village are like, I can show them Phulera. And that says something.
Every episode had a self contained narrative, like a sitcom, which made it that much more watchable. And, because I can't seem to figure out where to insert this thought, it is here I must place it; I loved how Abhishek lived in the panchayat office which was just a bit removed from the rest of the village. It rendered his detachment, his loneliness that much more visual and comprehensible for the audience. I wonder how long it must've taken to scout the location for this show.
It also consistently improves itself with each episode in an almost
palpable manner and nothing me makes me happier than witnessing
someone's artistic growth. Hell, the final episode even made me cry,
what else do you want. That was actually the exact moment when the show
turned from 8.9 to 9 for me. And I just found out that it was directed
by Raghu from TVF, the man who parodied Roadies.
Every scene stays on for just a bit too long to show a detail of our culture that we don't see in cinema. Like, there's a scene where Abhishek calls Prahlad, his colleague to help him with some task. Turns out Prahlad is busy and can't come. Abhishek hangs up and the scene cuts back to the Prahlad's shot where his son asks him what was the call about and he tells him flippantly. Such details are put in regularly throughout it's runtime. And I think that's just beautiful.
Panchayat is
clearly made with sincerity and love and its as infectious as it is heartwarming.
