Bas Andar Se Mann | Old Woman | Funny Meme

Bas Andar Se Mann | Old Woman | Funny Meme | 4K Quality

The first few episodes of the new season of Panchayat are so dull that

I had to leave my show midway and watch the more entertaining Malaika Legal Hai,

which alternates between the self-reflectiveness of old comedies and the sharp insights of new comedies.

Ever since Panchayat first delighted us four years ago, it has lost its momentum

and the third season, released this week, has made one thing very clear: Panchayat is no longer a comedy.

Written by Chandan Kumar and directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra, the first season —

about MBA aspirant Abhishek Tripathi who takes up the post of secretary in a village panchayat — was refreshingly light.

“Tripathi’s nervousness can be linked to the wide-eyed confusion of IAS young

Agastya Sen in Upamanyu Chatterjee’s extremely clever 1988 novel, English, August,

and the grounded beginnings of the show’s protagonist are reminiscent of Shah Rukh Khan’s struggles in Swades,” I wrote then, during the pandemic.

“Yet Tripathi is deeply illiterate, much to Sen’s dismay, and far removed from worldly wisdom like Khan’s NASA-returned scientist.

Old Woman | Funny Meme | 4K Quality

Here, simply, is an underachieving youth who wants to do better but doesn’t know how. This could be more Newton than Swades.”

That first season, slow as an old ceiling fan, had a lot to say — about masculinity, self-esteem, empathy, and, perhaps most importantly, first impressions.

Panchayat set itself apart from most streaming shows.

The cast was top-notch right from the start: Jitendra Kumar as city boy Tripathi, Neena Gupta as the village pradhan, Raghubir Yadav as her overbearing husband “pradhan-pati”, Faisal Malik as his deputy Prahlad, and Chandan Roy as Tripathi’s naïve assistant.

It was a gang worth loving.

A few years later, the gang began to behave erratically.

Bas Andar Se Mann | Old Woman | Funny Meme | 4K Quality

“This season we see them throwing their weight around,” I wrote in 2022.

“There’s a local rabble-rouser they don’t like, a bitter critic who calls them out for being complicit and selfish, and the truth of the matter is that he makes a valid point.

They’re bending the rules to suit their needs, and when challenged, they respond by threatening and intimidating the man,

destroying on-camera evidence of their own wrongdoing, and — repeatedly — beating the complainant’s wife with a chappal.

They act as bullies.”

I was late to the ‘Panchayat’ party.

In fact, I watched it almost a year after its release in May 2021, specifically at the peak of the second wave of Covid.

Undoubtedly, I am sure it must have resonated with many others as well.

However, the problem is that we all collectively now think that ‘Panchayat’ is a gift that keeps on giving.

Unfortunately, we are wrong.”