Panchayat Season 4 is watchable, mainly because of the wonderful actors, who, over the seasons have developed a warm rapport, notes Deepa Gahlot.
It couldn’t last. The rural paradise that is Phulera, in Uttar Pradesh, *had* to encounter violence and wickedness, and that happened by the end of Season 3.
The popularity of this TVF show is such that Season 4 drops earlier than scheduled, without a recap. So anyone who has not watched the earlier seasons might want to binge before diving into the new episodes.
The TVF team that created the original and utterly charming show — Writer Chandan Kumar and Director Deepak Kumar Mishra — return to this one.
Panchayat started with the entry of city-bred Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar) into Phulera. The engineering graduate had accepted a job as the panchayat secretary in the village to get some work experience as he prepared for the MBA entrance exam.
The village sarpanch is Manju Devi (Neena Gupta), but as it usually happens in patriarchal societies, her husband Brij Bhushan Dubey (Raghubir Yadav) tales on the title and the duties of the Pradhan.
With his office assistant, the always beaming Vikas (Chandan Roy), and deputy Pradhan, Prahlad (Faisal Malik), the reluctant ‘sachivji’ sets out to administer the village, encountering problems they don’t teach at any business school — a groom refusing to proceed with the wedding with a girl from the village till he gets the revolving office chair belonging to Abhishek; the villager who wants the newly-installed CCTV cameras to help find his missing goat, a man stealing a computer monitor believing it to be a TV, villagers objecting to family planning slogans and so on.
The genius was in creating humour out of ordinary situations.
Abhishek gets absorbed into the Dubey family, finds loyal pals in Vikas and Prahlad, and a tentative romance with their daughter Rinki (Sanvikaa).
There is also a rivalry with Bhushan (Durgesh Kumar) and his shrewish wife, Kranti (Sunita Rajwar).
The power-hungry MLA, Chandrakishore Singh (Pankaj Jha), whom the Phulera team rubbed the wrong way in Season 3, is seething with anger now.
Pradhan is recovering from a gunshot wound, Prahlad is still haunted by the tragedy of losing his soldier son, Abhishek is still struggling with his CAT exam preparations, his feelings for Rinki and his confusion about the future.
The village with walls, painted with cute and funny slogans, is now infected with politics and violence (Chandrakishore is seen whipping a man!).
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