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Before the Covid-19 pandemic, OTTs were uncharted territory for me. I loved the cinema hall experience with that smell of hot coffee and warm popcorn. But that love is now gone, especially when I think about the whole process of driving to a theater, buying an expensive ticket, sitting with random strangers and then having to pay exorbitant parking fees. No, sir, not happening. 

With OTTs (I have Netflix and Amazon Prime), you get everything for cheap, and the convenience of starting a movie or series whenever and from wherever you want cannot beat anything. The bigger plus are the new releases on the platforms. OTT releases are winning big time compared to what cinema halls have been screening of late.

Recently released on Amazon Prime, “Panchayat 2” is one such winner–and the perfect justification for why I don’t waste any more time in cinema halls. The first season of the comedy-drama web series, created by The Viral Fever, was first aired in April 2020 and went on to win multiple awards in India. 

Banking on the critical and commercial success of the first season, our favorite characters from Panchayat return to the screen with the same lovableness and charisma. Abhishek (Jitendra Kumar), the reluctant Panchayat secretary, is now more adjusted to the life and people of Phulera, Uttar Pradesh. 

He has built synergy with his office team Prahlad (Faisal Malik) and Vikas (Chandan Roy). He has a cordial relationship with Brij Bhushan Dubey aka Pradhan ji (Raghubir Yadav) and Manju Devi (Neena Gupta), the actual Panchayat Pradhan. Abhishek’s proximity to the Pradhan family also brings him close to their daughter Rinki (Sanvikaa). Everything is going well with the Phulera Panchayat group when Bhushan (Durgesh Kumar), dubbed Banraakas by the villagers, starts meddling in their affairs, mainly owing to a past grudge with Pradhan ji. 

Although there is continuity for some plots from the first season, Panchayat Season 2 can be watched and enjoyed as a standalone series. Deepak Kumar Mishra again takes the director’s seat for the eight episodes of the web series written by Chandan Kumar.

Centered in a small rural village, Panchayat’s simple, organic story has the underpinnings of a broader political statement. Instead of complicating the plot with a heavy juxtaposition of the personal and political, it uses narratives to tell the story of most of rural India, which is still far away from the mainstream filmmakers’ lens. 

There is not one name in the lead roles that overpower the others in Panchayat. Yes, sachib ji Abhishek gets to be the center of attention in the series. Still, the rest of the cast, composed of industry veterans Neena Gupta and Raghubir Yadav, is the film’s lifeline. My personal favorite is Vikas, the office assistant. Actor Chandan Roy excellently portrays a dehaati villager who is not one of the most intelligent in the group but still loyal and dependable.

Panchayat’s imagery of a rural UP village is grounded and realistic. The attachment to simplicity and realism is probably what makes this series loved by scores of people watching it. Maybe they can relate more to Abhishek, Pradhan Ji or Vikas than Bachhan Pandey or Chulbul Pandey. We are talking about real people and real lives in a fictional village, and people identifying with everything within. Maybe mainstream Bollywood filmmakers need to be more mindful of the audiences’ changing preferences from some of the latest OTT releases.

The rest of the production seems to be aligned to entertain and not overwhelm the audience–not just the film’s writing, acting, screenplay and direction. The whole package works for Panchayat. 

Who should watch it?

Everyone! No exception. Even if you don’t understand Hindi, the subtitles are good enough to tell you what's going on. Panchayat 2 makes it to my ‘must watch’ list, and I am sure it is on the lists of most of my fellow movie buffs. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Genre: Comedy, drama

Actors: Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta, Raghubir Yadav

Director: Deepak Kumar Mishra

Run time: 4hrs (approx.)

Cho Nam-Joo’s novel ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982’ centers on a woman who goes about her daily life in South Korea. It sounds simple enough. Yet the story—about everyday sexism that women face in their personal and professional lives—is moving and makes you think. It narrows in on how women, in South Korea and the world over, face unnecessary pressures, scorn, sexism and even assault and how they can lead to a loss of self and lack of confidence. The book was published in 19 countries, becoming an instant bestseller in Japan, China, and Taiwan, and has sold more than two million copies. 

Middle-class, 30-something Kim Jiyoung, whose mind starts unraveling suddenly, could easily be any woman we know. She has dealt with the effects of Korea’s misogynistic society from a young age. Her paternal grandmother is disappointed by her birth. She had hoped for a grandson. As a child, Jiyoung had to share a room with her elder sister while her brother got his own. At work, she is overlooked for a promotion. Men make random remarks about her appearance and her father blames her when she is stalked. When she becomes a mother, she has to give up work to look after her child. 

Jiyoung also endures many cases of sexual assault and discrimination in her life. Her school had many male teachers who sexually assaulted young girls. One of her male high school teachers touched female students in class using a pointer stick: “He carried around a pointer that had a hand pointing just the index finger on the tip, which he used to poke girls in the breast under the guise of drawing attention to missing nametags, or to lift girls’ skirts to “check their school uniform.” 

At work, there’s a hidden spy camera in the ladies’ room and men pass around naked photos of their female colleagues. When found out, the company’s director tries to brush the incident under the carpet saying, “The accused male employees have families and parents to protect. Do you really want to destroy people’s lives like this? Do you want people to find out that your pictures are out there?” 

Sexism dictates the lives of most women and through Jiyoung we are made to realize just how it can potentially ruin us, sometimes even without us noticing until it’s too late. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a slim book but it will take you time to finish it because the content is quite heavy. Cho Nam-Joo’s fiction is backed by hard facts in the form of statistics and reports that are cited as footnotes. You might find yourself googling these articles to learn more. I certainly did—actually, going through the references online took more time than reading the book. All in all, the book is an important read that calls for some much-needed introspection.

Three and half stars

Fiction

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Cho Nam-Joo

Published: 2020

Publisher: Liveright

Pages: 176, Paperback 

I had watched a trailer of “Toolsidas Junior” a couple of months ago, anticipated it, and then completely forgotten about it until its recent release on Netflix. Written and directed by Mridul Mahendra, the Hindi-language sports drama could be the only Indian biopic ever made on a snooker player. 

Toolsidas (Rajiv Kapoor) is a champion snooker player in the 90’s Kolkata, India. He is also a middle class family man living with his wife (Tasveer Kamil) and sons Goti (Chinmai Chandranshuh) and Midi (Varun Buddhadev). One of Toolsidas’ most coveted life goals is winning the Calcutta Club Snooker Championship, something he has never done, perhaps due to his drinking habit. 

In the 1994 tournament, Toolsidas makes it to the final of the championship. But then he is tricked into drinking before the final match by the multi-time winner Jimmy Tandon (Dalip Tahil). Toolsidas loses his focus and cops a massive defeat at Jimmy’s hands. 

Watching the game in the audience, his youngest son Midi vows to put up his father’s name on the board of winners someday. Thus begins the 13-year-old’s journey of learning and mastering the game to beat the city’s bigwigs. In the process, Midi also connects to local legend Mohammed Salaam (Sanjay Dutt), a former champion, who coaches him to perfection. 

Toolsidas Junior is a heartwarming family drama that is likely targeted at younger audiences. I say younger audiences because the film retains this innocence—both in the storyline and production—throughout. Although based on a true story, Toolsidas is not a detailed biopic like, say, “Mary Kom” (2014) or “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” (2013). The timeline is much shorter and instead of only glorifying the protagonist, the film focuses more on the coming-of-age of the main characters. 

The film features one of the biggest names in Bollywood—but it is not Sanjay Dutt’s film. Neither does it belong to the late Rajiv Kapoor—a member of the famous Kapoor family—who makes his final and posthumous film appearance.  Although senior actors contribute to the film’s likability with their skills and experience, it is the younger ones who steal the show. 

Varun Buddhadev as the young Midi is obviously the center of attraction. The young actor’s character transitions from a noob to a champion within the film and as audience, we can see his growth and empathize with him. Midi is innocent yet bright, a teenager yet mature where he needs to be. 

Accompanying Midi onscreen is Chinmai Chandranshuh as his elder brother Goti. In his late teens, Goti is the hustler in the family. He knows what’s happening in his surroundings more than Midi and is sometimes a kind of bridge between Midi and the rest of the world. While he is a caring elder brother, Goti can’t help burdening the younger one with expectations. Although quite young, Chandranshuh is an experienced actor with almost half a dozen roles under his belt and this shows in Toolsidas Junior as he teams up with Buddhadev to create heartwarming situations and at times to provide comic reliefs. 

But the 2hrs 12mins screen time does feel stretched for a plot that does not require much explanation and backstories. 

One can also feel that the departure of Rajiv Kapoor before completing the shooting has had some effect in the film’s storyline. Yet the story could still have been handled better, especially considering that the film’s writer and director—Mridul Mahendra—is the actual Midi and the film is about him and his family. 

Who should watch it?

Although Toolsidas Junior feels as if it has been made for youngsters, it is a heartwarming, feel-good movie that can be enjoyed by everyone. With the option of skipping through the boring bits on Netflix, you can surely start watching it.

Genre: Sports drama

Rating: 3.5 stars

Actors: Rajiv Kapoor, Chinmai Chandranshuh, Varun Buddhadev, Sanjay Dutt

Director: Mridul Mahendra 

Run time: 2hrs 12 mins 

If you are in the mood for a creepy story that makes the hairs at the back of your neck stand, I suggest you read ‘The Sun Down Motel’ by Simone St. James. It’s a bit slow and there aren’t many jump scares but it feels like watching a good suspense thriller movie. The vibe is kind of like that of ‘The Shining’ by Stephen King, perhaps the ultimate horror book/movie set in a hotel. The Sun Down Motel is a family drama, ghost story, and murder mystery all rolled in one. The initial few chapters feel a bit bleak and that might make you want to stop reading. But once the story picks up pace—after a 100 or so pages—you can’t put it down. 

Told in two different timelines, The Sun Down Motel takes you to a small town in upstate New York. The setting is very eerie. In 2017, a young woman, Carly Kirk, arrives in Fell. She wants to find out what happened to her aunt, Viv Delaney, who disappeared from The Sun Down Motel in the 1980s. Carly’s mother never talked about her sister but Carly could sense that she was haunted by Viv’s disappearance till the day she died. 

For that reason, Carly has never been able to let go of the past and is determined to figure out just what happened to her aunt. She takes up the same job—as a night clerk—that Viv had when she disappeared and starts poking around. She finds out that nothing much has changed in Fell and at the motel since 1982 and is quickly ensnared in the same mysteries that apparently claimed her aunt. 

I don’t usually read books with ghosts and otherworldly stuff but I quite enjoyed this one. Maybe that’s because the supernatural element is just one aspect of the story. The plot moves forward even without it; the story’s mystery isn’t explained by the supernatural events. The ghosts give you goosebumps but the story is grounded in reality. Trigger warning: There are mentions of rape and some of it is horrifyingly graphic. The reason it’s a three-star read and not a four-star one is because the story wraps up a little too tidily for my liking. Otherwise, it’s a great book with just the right amount of twists and turns to keep you hooked.

Three stars

Fiction

The Sun Down Motel

Simone St. James 

Published: 2020

Publisher: Berkley

Pages: 342, Paperback

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45885644-the-sun-down-motel