'Lauki' affair: Prime Video's 'Panchyaat' promotes new season with ads printed on bottle gourds

Prime Video's hit series Panchayat was renewed for a third season, and in an effort to promote it, the makers of the show went with an innovative approach that has piqued the interest of the internet.

A viral video on Instagram showcased bottle gourds in a vegetable market with the show's name and the release date of the 3rd season printed on it. The vegetables read, "PANCHAYAT", followed below by, "amazon prime | May 28".

The post itself was captioned, “Jitendra kumar, Raghubir ji and Neena ji, what a unique way to promote #Panchayat session 3 on 28 may.”

But why bottle gourds of all things, you ask? Well the show, starring Jitendra Kumar (from the hit YouTube and Netflix series Kota Factory) and veteran actress Neena Gupta, heavily uses the vegetable as a comic prop, especially as a subtle reference to bribe money or hafta.

A Prime Video India Original series directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra, the plot of the light-hearted show revolves around an engineering graduate who joins as a panchayat secretary in a remote fictional village of Phulera of Uttar Pradesh due to a lack of better job options.

The show also starres Raghubir Yadav, Faisal Malik, Chandan Roy, and Sanvikaa.

In the show, the Pradhan-Pati (the Sarpanch's husband) presents bottle gourds as 'gifts' to Abhishek, the protagonist, on many occasions, to the point where Abhishek is accused of accepting the bottle gourds as a bribe from the Pradhan (Sarpanch).

Abhishek himself uses it to try and get some bureaucratic work done, though he does mention at one point that he is tired of eating the vegetable all the time.

Panchayat season 3, created by TheViralFever and written by Chandan Kumar, will premiere on May 28, 2024. It will be available in Hindi and dubbed in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada.