Panchayat: The village drama that got famous in India

The most popular Hindi online series in India last year was a comedy-drama about the experiences of a young man from a city who moves to a distant town.

According to a report, season 2 of ‘Panchayat’ had the highest audience recall and was the 3^rd most viewed season, after ‘Rudra: The Edge of Darkness’ and season 3 of ‘Aashram’.

With far more than 30 million viewers for season 2, Panchayat has an impressive IMDB rating of 8.9 out of 10, which is greater than that of House of the Dragon or season 4 of Stranger Things.

The plot is not too complicated. Abhishek Tripathi, a recent engineering graduate played by Jitendra Kumar, accepts a position as a low-level administrator in the fictitious village of Phulera in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh due to a lack of better work opportunities.

Poor wages and a squat building with three rooms that houses the Panchayat’s dirty, bleak office make up his job, which is also his new home (village council). His coworkers are uneducated, unassuming, and rural males.

With the council members’ assistance, Tripathi works to solve minor issues for the villagers during the day. At night, he worries about power outages, his lonesome presence, and occasionally running from snakes.

To discover a route out of Phulera, he starts studying at night. He would have better work possibilities after passing the test.

But as the days, weeks, and months go by, Tripathi starts to change; relationships are formed, and even the possibility of a romantic one arises.

The audience appears to have related to the cute and funny story of the young administrator and his honest coworkers.

The decision to establish power connections is made based on who the significant people are rather than the place they are most needed, as evidenced in Phulera, where the town council chief is a woman but her husband holds the real power. The Panchayat officials appear to be wealthy landowners, but we come across a man who is unable to afford even the most basic foods.

The creator of Panchayat, Chandan Kumar, claims he didn’t intend for the programme to be preachy; rather, he intended to create something that would give viewers a peek at rural life.

Mr. Kumar claims that while the show is based on actual events, the characters in it are not modelled after real people.

Now, according to Ms. Puri, she is anticipating the release of the third season, which is scheduled for later this year.

The story “will keep going for a few more seasons,” Mr. Kumar assures, without offering a specific release date.