Let’s go back to a time when the idea of “Netflix and chill” was just “Doordarshan and dal-chawal”. India had one channel. One. If you missed Hum Log, you waited till someone in the neighbourhood retold the episode, usually with unnecessary spice.
And yet, with all that simplicity, Hum Log (1984) and later Buniyaad (1986) grabbed the nation by its collective heartstrings. You weren’t just watching a show, you were living with the Lalloos, Chhutkis and Havelirams. They cried, you cried. They hoped, you hoped harder.
Cut to today. Gen Z probably thinks Hum Log is a WhatsApp family group and Buniyaad sounds like an architecture app. They haven’t a clue. But here’s the twist, they still connect with Panchayat. How? Because awkward bosses, useless degrees, small-town boredom and the search for meaning are eternal themes. Also, Pradhan-pati’s sarcasm? That’s meme gold.
Panchayat doesn’t try to be deep, it just quietly is. Like a pressure cooker whistle in the distance. It’s where the biggest life lessons come hidden in cow dung disputes and solar panel dramas. And while the camera now pans in 4K, the soul hasn’t changed much since Ashok Kumar walked out of the fog and said, “Zara sochiye.”
From grainy Doordarshan screens to high-definition streaming, the technology has changed dramatically. But what’s stayed the same is the hunger for meaningful content. Whether it’s weekly episodes on the family Murphy radio or binging an entire season in one night, viewers remain emotionally invested - as long as it feels real.
Hum Log was post-Emergency India wrestling with identity, morality and the very idea of “progress.” It was the moral middle-class opera. Buniyaad looked back at Partition to help a fragmented nation understand where its fractures began. And it was India’s first epic of pain and perseverance. Panchayat quietly critiques contemporary India where even digital India hasn’t bridged the gap between the cities and villages and ambition must learn to walk on unpaved roads.
The characters, all of them in different ways, are survivors of their systems. Chhutki dreamed of independence. Manju Devi holds power but has to be nudged into using it. Lalloo wrestled with fame. Abhishek wrestles with LinkedIn-worthy career choices. Haveliram built his life from rubble. Prahlad breaks down in a tearless funeral.
Ashok Kumar gave closing commentary with all the gravitas of a Shakespearean monologue. Panchayat gives you comedy wrapped in emotional landmines. When Prahlad speaks about his dead son with the composure of a man who’s tired of crying, no music swells, no slow motion, just stillness. That moment lands harder than a hundred tearjerker.
India has changed. But Indians? We still carry our dreams wrapped in anxiety, our sarcasm as armour, and our values jostling with modern pressures. These shows aren’t just entertainment, they’re emotional census data. They tell us that good storytelling doesn’t age. That subtlety can be more powerful than spectacle. And audiences will always make space in their hearts for characters who feel like home.
Whether it’s 1984 or 2024, we’re still those people. Looking for warmth. We might’ve swapped rabbit-ear antennas for Wi-Fi, but the longing for good storytelling - rooted, warm, human - still hits home. Whether it’s a refugee camp in Buniyaad or a photocopy machine in Phulera, we’re all just looking for connection. And maybe, just maybe, that’s our buniyaad.
