Gram Chikitsalay web series review: Opposite of Insta-gram

On Amazon Prime VideoDirector Rahul PandeyActors Amol Parashar Anandeshwar Dwivedi Vinay PathakRating 35First off I have a soft corner for stuff set in villages Even if Gram Chikitsalay feels like simply the first draft of that showI also love the way all the characters refer to the doctor in this series as lsquoDaak Saabrsquo Thatrsquos also how it shows up in the subtitles Itrsquos the colloquially correct pronunciationAlthough the gentleman that the villagers call Daak Saab is actually a ldquojhola chhaaprdquo quack Of which there must be God knows how many in rural IndiaActor Vinay Pathak plays this beloved role doing Internet searches for symptomsdiagnoses rather triggerhappy doling out ldquobooster shotsrdquo to unsuspecting patientsPathak as Chetak Kumar equally gets his purbi eastern Indian accent right We know Pathak Bheja Fry Khosla Ka Ghosla first from his days as VJ on Channel V where he held a legit American twang Hersquos a rare actor who can seamlessly switch between bothWherersquos this purbi accent in the show from to be precise Well in the first episode you observe an old bloke on a cycle asking for directions to Danapur that is supposedly 2 km from this village named BhatkandiDanapur I know is a satellite town of Patna Only the vehicle number plates in this village mention Jharkhand state while you observe its district headquarter in a document as Bulsitiya mdash quite funnily named like Fakoli Bazaar off Panchayatrsquos Phulera village in UP that was shot in Mahodiya MPI call attention to such trivia only because villages that constitute 70 per cent of India is somehow seen as anonymousgeneric onscreen while most good filmsseries attempt to capture every nuance of the bigsmall cities where theyrsquore setItrsquos also unclear when why or how perhaps mid 1990s onwards Indiarsquos villages swiftly fell off the mainstream entertainment mapAnything that authentically reverses it is foremost a pleasure to dive into even give a longer rope to mdash including the last such show I watched Dupahiya also on Prime Video that was much richer in terms of comicthriller plotThat rural entry happens in this case with the pastoral longshot of an autorickshaw meeting a herd of sheep in Bhatkandi with farmsfields and lake on either sideThe gent Prabhat Sinha Amol Parashar on that rick is a doctor sent over from Delhi to take over its defunct primary health centre or gram chikitsalayThe irony of the showrsquos title is there are hardly any properly functional gram chikitsalayas in Indiarsquos eastern heartlandAlthough seeming quite affected in his manners the good doc looks around clueless in an altogether foreign shore that he must figure out in order to set up base even if temporarilyFor closest company he has his associates chiefly a friendly assistant played wonderfully by Anandeshwar DwivediNow this is a predicable trope alright mdash that of a city boy hit by cultural shockstruggles supplanted into a village Take Agastya Sen crashlanding into Madna as a bureaucrat in English August 1994 Or of course Abhishek Jitendra Kumar similarly thrown into a gram panchayat in PanchayatThe reason for this is kinda obvious While the filmseries may be rural in its setting its gaze has gotta be urban mdash because thatrsquos what its OTT subscription audience is India may reside in the villages Thatrsquos not where its pockets are deepAlso itrsquos not that the premise of Panchayat was particularly uniqueConsider the Doordarshan TV serial in the 1980s titled Ummeed where a bank manager from the city is posted in a rundown office at a village with one assigned assistant He has to get used to rural life Who played this lead character in that show Shah Rukh KhanFor the most part the beautycharm of Gram Chikitsalay lies in its atmospherics casual observations say the kavi sammelan at the funeral bhojdinnerOr untested faces in walkon parts mdash the old man with swollen testicles that bombastic bloke whorsquos the local teacher seeking medical certificate the other guy whorsquos gone ahead and farmed on government propertyhellipOver time Irsquove come to realise sliceoflife shows work best when theyrsquore about nothing at all Of course therersquos no show about nothingWhat I mean is say Friends or Seinfeld in an Indian village Thatrsquos what the first season of TVFrsquos Panchayat charmingly felt likeTVF has also produced Gram Chikitsalay that appears to lose grip over the narrative when cursorily dealing with hard issues like mental health or electoral politics without the depth to offer its characters eventuallyOr even the plotrsquos central conflict for that matter mdash that nobody in the village wants to visit its health centre now that itrsquos fully functional for the first time Why would they notIt helps that the show is short hence sweet mdash at five episodes flat of about 40 minutes each As against overstaying its welcomeThere is no reason to catch another season But if velachilling will pick a village over villas any dayatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params

Gram Chikitsalay web series review: Opposite of Insta-gram

On: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Rahul Pandey
Actors: Amol Parashar, Anandeshwar Dwivedi, Vinay Pathak
Rating: 3/5

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Home / Entertainment / Web Series / Article / Gram Chikitsalay web series review: Opposite of Insta-gram

Gram Chikitsalay web series review: Opposite of Insta-gram

On: Amazon Prime VideoDirector: Rahul PandeyActors: Amol Parashar, Anandeshwar Dwivedi, Vinay PathakRating: 3/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

On: Amazon Prime Video
Director: Rahul Pandey
Actors: Amol Parashar, Anandeshwar Dwivedi, Vinay Pathak
Rating: 3/5