The Tamil remake of Panchayat is a great change

A Tamil remake of a well-known Hindi serial, Thalaivettiyan PalayamStreaming on Amazon Prime Video, plays smart and steady This is not a photocopy Panchayat. A great transition, the eight-episode show has a tone and tenor almost entirely its own.

Directed by Naga and written by Bala Kumaran, Thalaivettiyan Palayam The original is from the production stable that made the show. Creators know exactly how not to end up with a dull, uninspired copy. Above all, the series has actors and technicians who deliver on all fronts.

Taking no time to hit the sweet spot, it doesn’t let the familiar get in the way of an intelligent retelling of a familiar story. It factors in and plays out all the requisite cultural nuances that differentiate it from Panchayat in body and soul.

If you haven’t seen it PanchayatThis show has bushels of joy that will make your every moment feel fresh and precious. But even if you have, the subtly altered character details and plot thrusts are primed to add new dimensions to the repeat experience.

The main characters, as they did in Hindi shows, grow among the audience. The various threads, encounters and verbal jumbles that make up the life of the titular village ensure that the story and its strands flow as smoothly as they should. Panchayat.

Thalaivettiyan PalayamProduced by Deepak Kumar Mishra and Arunabh Kumar for TVF, it maintains the broad narrative structure but makes slight but significant deviations from the original script to factor in the rhythm and characterization of a remote village in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

An engineering graduate from Chennai gets a job as a village panchayat secretary, hoping to use his free time to prepare for a shot at a B-school seat. He took a bus to the village, pulled out a gas oven and set up home in a room in an office building with spotty electricity. Ennui, brought on by loneliness, follows.

Trouble started from day one. As the weeks turn into months, he explores the ups and downs of rural life through his brush with the villagers and their diversity. He struggles to encourage himself about the job, the village and its inhabitants.

Political undercurrents and social shibboleths – as these have been repeatedly pointed out by the chairman and his cohorts – are a constant obstacle to decision-making and action. His (mis)adventures and consequent education add up to an entertaining and enlightening slice-of-life comedy.

The struggle of its hero Thalaivettiyan PalayamSiddharth (Abhishek Kumar), setting foot in the village is no less difficult than Abhishek Tripathi in the panchayat. He plays the same character – bearded, bespectacled, dazed and confused – as opposed to the clean-shaven, boyish and brooding persona projected by Jeetendra Kumar.

In Phulera village in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district, the city-breeding village panchayat secretary, a pond fish thrown into a pond, had to climb to the top of a water tank – it towers over the landscape – to stumble upon because of being in the village.

In the village of Thalaivettian Palayam, it’s a hilltop where the hero has to take in the scenic view of his first place and discover an incentive that might make him fall in love with the benefits of the job, if not more. The work itself.

Tamil Lipi recites a poem in praise of Lord Muruga in a voice that instantly catches the attention of the people of Chennai. He jokingly asks: Is this Tamil rap? From his perspective, this village is clearly a world completely different from the one he grew up in.

Abhishek Kumar informs Siddharth – his family name is never revealed, leading to occasional speculation among the villagers about his caste identity – with distinct contours. He is different not only in physical terms but also in his behavioral peculiarities.

The village, however, is not defined by outsiders but by those who call it home, especially elected panchayat chairperson Meenakshi whose husband Meenakshi Sundaram stands for her in a village council reserved for women but run by men. .

In an interesting casting slate, a real-life family plays a fictional character Thalaivettiyan Palayam. Seasoned actress Devadarshini Meenakshi. The character’s husband (and de facto panchayat head) is portrayed by the actress’s husband Chetan. And the role of their onscreen child Soundarya, who is seen only rarely, and in the shadows, until her face is revealed in the final scene, is essayed by the actor-couple’s daughter Niyati Kidambi.

PanchayatIts Prahlad Pandey is replaced here by Prabhu (Anand Samy), the deputy chairman of the panchayat who is Meenakshi’s brother when he left the Hindi show. But the differences aren’t just cosmetic. Unlike Manju Devi of the panchayat, Meenakshi can read, write and sign her name on government certificates and documents that come to her for approval.

When Siddhartha is ordered by the higher-ups of the district administration to create a public service slogan and paint it on the village wall, it focuses on menstrual awareness, not family planning (as in the case of panchayats). Predictably, the words he chooses and the bluntness of the message offend some people.

In PanchayatThe main characters are Tripathi, Dubey, Pandey and Shukla, all belonging to upper castes. In Thalaivettiyan PalayamCaste dynamics remain unclear. Thus, it has a greater subtle and poignant effect on the discussion between Siddharth, who abhors all forms of discrimination, and the tradition-bound villagers, including his office assistant Lakshmipati (Paul Raj).

Panchayat And Thalaivettiyan Palayam Two different socio-political spheres exist. Panchayat office portraits are examples of this among other things. In the panchayat, freedom fighters whose faces adorn the walls are Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Chandrasekhar Azad.

In the Tamil remake, while Gandhi is a constant, the other two places are occupied by Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru. Another key difference: the visual presence of the chosen trio is infinitely more persistent and robust Thalaivettiyan Palayam than the Panchayat.

Thalaivettiyan Palayam It is particularly notable for the manner in which subtle changes are employed to ‘reinvent’ a story that has already been delivered once with massive success to a pan-Indian audience. Carrying a performance varnish effortlessly, its veneers show no signs of wear and tear.

Thalaivettiyan Palayam It is a masterful transcreation that stands on its own feet.