Gullak (TV series)

Overview

Gullak is an Indian Hindi-language web television series produced by The Viral Fever (TVF) that streams on the SonyLIV platform. The show portrays the everyday life of the Mishra family, a middle-class household in a small town of North India, and frames its episodes around small domestic incidents, family relationships, and shared memories. The title Gullak, meaning a piggy bank or coin-box in Hindi, is used as a metaphor for the family's collected stories.

Key facts

Premise

Each episode of Gullak centres on a small event in the life of the Mishra family — a household repair, a family wedding, an examination result, a relative's visit, or a financial worry — and uses the incident to explore the dynamics between parents and children, neighbours, and the wider community. The narrative is delivered through the perspective of a gullak that has watched generations of the family, a device that frames the series as a collection of preserved memories rather than a continuous plot.

Principal characters

• Santosh Mishra — the patriarch, a government employee, portrayed by Jameel Khan.
• Shanti Mishra — the homemaker mother, portrayed by Geetanjali Kulkarni.
• Annu Mishra — the elder son, portrayed by Vaibhav Raj Gupta.
• Aman Mishra — the younger son and a school student, portrayed by Harsh Mayar.

Production

The series is part of TVF's catalogue of long-form, character-driven web shows that focus on middle-class Indian life, alongside titles such as Panchayat and Kota Factory. Gullak was created as a TVF Originals production and later moved with TVF's slate to SonyLIV when the studio entered into a content partnership with the platform. Episodes are typically short, often around twenty to thirty minutes, with a small principal cast and limited locations centred on the Mishra family home.

Release history

• Season 1 — released in 2019, introducing the Mishra family and the narrative device of the gullak.
• Season 2 — released in 2021 on SonyLIV.
• Season 3 — released in 2022 on SonyLIV.
• Season 4 — released in 2024 on SonyLIV.

Reception and significance

Gullak has been widely noted by Indian critics and viewers for its understated tone, naturalistic dialogue, and its portrait of small-town middle-class domestic life. Its writing avoids high-stakes drama and instead derives narrative interest from familiar household routines, intergenerational disagreements, and the financial pressures of a single-income family. The series is often grouped with other recent Indian streaming productions that have shifted the focus of Hindi web content from metropolitan settings to qasba and mofussil India.

The performances of Jameel Khan and Geetanjali Kulkarni, in particular, have been highlighted for their portrayal of a long-married couple whose affection is communicated through routine rather than declaration. The show has also been credited with developing a recurring audience for slice-of-life Hindi web series and with reinforcing TVF's reputation in that format.

Themes

• Middle-class household economics and the management of a limited income.
• Parent–child relationships, particularly the expectations placed on sons regarding education and employment.
• Neighbourhood and community life in small-town North India.
• Marriage, domestic routine, and the emotional vocabulary of long-standing relationships.
• Memory and nostalgia, framed through the narrating gullak.

Related topics

• The Viral Fever
• SonyLIV
• Panchayat (TV series)
• Kota Factory
• Indian web series
• Hindi television
• Geetanjali Kulkarni
• Jameel Khan
• Harsh Mayar

References

• Official SonyLIV listing for Gullak.
• The Viral Fever (TVF) production catalogue.
• Indian press coverage of Gullak seasons at the time of their respective releases.