Panchayat
On: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Deepak Kumar Mishra
Cast: Jitendra Kumar, Chandan Roy, Raghuvir Yadav, Faisal Malik
Rating: 

What could potentially be a hit, or hip and happenin' about a realistic show, wholly set in a nondescript village within a district in North Indian boonies called Ballia? Or that, while the series features a young man in the lead role, and is set in Uttar Pradesh, it is altogether devoid of crime, grime, gore, angst and poverty of any sort? It is, in fact, a sweet and happy series—if you wish to classify it thus. Does that make any sense?

A lot, if you have by any chance seen Dev Benegal's black-comedy English, August (1994), based on Upamanyu Chatterjee's seminal novel of the same name. That book pretty much defined an Anglicised, urban-born generation, which through government jobs found itself interacting with the 'real'/rural India they were expected to rule over. There was nothing in their upbringing or education to prepare them for it.