'Mitti Ek Nayi Pehchaan' Review: A grounded tale of heartbreak, hope, and the meaning of home

Mitti Ek Nayi Pehchaan

Cast: Ishwak Singh, Shruti Sharma, Diksha Juneja, Yogendra Tiku, Alka Amin, Rajesh Kumar & more

Directed by: Gaganjeet Singh & Alok Kumar Dwivedi

Produced by: FreshLime Films in association with Amazon MX Player

Streaming on: Amazon MX Player

Rating: ***1/2 (3.5/5)

The series opens with villagers frantically chasing nilgai away from their fields. It’s chaotic, urgent and unexpectedly emotional. That’s where Mitti Ek Nayi Pehchaan, now streaming on MX Player, begins. Set deep in rural India, the show doesn’t rely on big speeches or plot twists. Here, wild animals ruining months of crop work is drama enough.

At the centre is Raghav (Ishwak Singh), a calm on the outside, restless on the inside advertising professional. His city life is stable, job, girlfriend, boss, all in place, until a trip to Tal Chapra for his grandfather’s funeral shakes everything up.

The turning point? It’s not just grief. It’s a group of villagers mocking his late grandfather, calling him a man who left behind only debt and land disputes. That stings. Raghav’s city calm is gone. What follows is anger, confrontation and a sharp need to prove something.

From that moment, he stops being the polite ad guy. He snaps at people, challenges norms and refuses to be a silent visitor. His frustration is clear, he wants the village to wake up, to care. But he’s not entirely alone.

Enter Baiju and Mahoo, childhood friends now grown and very different. Baiju (Piyush Kumar) is sharp, rooted and doesn’t tolerate Raghav’s big city airs. He checks Raghav without raising his voice. Mahoo, on the other hand, lightens the mood, teasing, awkward but oddly comforting. They don’t instantly warm up to each other. Their interactions carry sarcasm, judgment and distance. But slowly, Baiju and Mahoo begin to ground Raghav. They don’t treat him like a hero. They treat him like someone who left and maybe forgot what mattered.

Raghav’s short trip stretches. He’s pulled into local issues — land disputes, farmer struggles, bureaucracy. The show wisely doesn’t paint him as a saviour. He’s not fixing problems; he’s trying to understand them. And the more he uncovers about his grandfather’s quiet defiance and honour, the more he shifts.

Performances That Hold the Ground

Ishwak Singh doesn’t make Raghav charming or idealistic. He lets him be messy. Angry, confused, nostalgic. One moment, he’s confronting a corrupt official. Next, he’s breaking down in a dry well. No melodrama, just restraint. And when he sits in his grandfather’s favourite spot, silently processing all that he ignored, the emotion lands without a word.

Shruti Sharma as Kritika Singh brings a calm, clearheaded presence. She’s the unshaken district collector who knows the system and uses it to guide Raghav. But the show changes her arc. She could have been the face of rural reform from within the system but gets pushed to the sidelines.

Diksha Juneja as Stuti, Raghav’s partner in Mumbai, gets even less. She’s emotionally consistent, supportive from afar but nearly invisible in the narrative. She’s written like the partner who waits too long and hears too little.

Alka Amin as dadi steals every small moment she’s in. Warm, witty and emotionally anchoring.

Yogendra Tikku, playing Raghav’s dadu, appears only briefly, but his absence drives the plot. His legacy unfolds through old memories, scattered flashbacks and village gossip. What he stood for, debtless dignity, quiet defiance, belief in the land, is what Raghav spends the whole series trying to decode. He becomes the voice in Raghav’s head, asking without asking: what does it really mean to return?

Where the Series Delivers

The show nails what farmers go through, sowing, pricing, rejection. No romanticising. Just exhaustion and quiet resistance. And identity too, not as a metaphor, but literally. What does it mean to belong? To leave and return?

Raghav isn’t finding a new purpose. He’s remembering one he ignored.

Where It Slips

Some pacing issues show up. A few episodes drag minor events longer than needed. The crop exhibition subplot could’ve been trimmed. And the political drama? A bit too sanitised. There’s also a lot going on, family, farms, romance, anger, politics, not all explored equally.

Craft That Lets the Story Breathe

Rural India isn’t made to look pretty here. That’s the point. The fields are muddy. Houses are cracked. Lights flicker. The camera stays when it needs to, and the sound design stays subtle, crickets, distant talk, wind. Nothing feels overdone or manipulated. It creates an atmosphere that matches the rawness of the story.

Equally grounded is the dialogue. Villagers speak with a real North Indian edge, sarcastic, biting, layered. Their words carry weight even when they’re joking. Raghav, by contrast, speaks with a clean, polished Mumbai accent. That contrast adds texture. Every exchange becomes more than just information, it becomes a clash of rhythms, cultures and ways of seeing the world.

Final Thoughts

Mitti Ek Nayi Pehchaan isn’t here to go viral. It’s a show with weight. It doesn’t offer instant fixes or happy endings. But it does suggest that staying, listening, and engaging with what you once left behind might still matter.

Raghav doesn’t become a hero. He just learns that being a salaried professional and someone rooted in the land aren’t opposites. They can coexist. That maybe getting your hands dirty again is a kind of healing too.

If you’ve ever wondered whether going back home was a mistake, or a necessity, this one will land hard. It’s emotional, yes, but it doesn’t go soft. It stays with you.