''Little Things'' is an Indian
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
streaming television
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air a ...
series, created by
Dhruv Sehgal
Dhruv Sehgal (born 19 March 1990) is an Indian actor, writer and director. He is best known for his work in Dice Media's '' Little Things'', where he portrayed Dhruv Vats alongside Mithila Palkar.
Life and career
Sehgal is from Delhi. After ...
, who also starred in the lead role along with
Mithila Palkar
Mithila Palkar (born 11 January 1993) is an Indian actress known for her characters in the TV series ''Girl in the City'' and Netflix's '' Little Things''. She rose to prominence in March 2016 with her Marathi version of the " cup song". Palkar ...
.
The series were directed by Ajay Bhuyan and Ruchir Arun and produced by Aditi Shrivastava, Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh of Dice Media. Its first season was premiered through the official YouTube channel of Dice Media, from 25 October 2016, to 22 November.
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
later purchased the franchise and its second season and third, was premiered on 5 October 2018 and 9 November 2019. Its fourth and the final season was released on 15 October 2021.
Premise
The story revolves around Kavya Kulkarni (Palkar) and Dhruv Vats (Sehgal), a couple in a live-in relationship in Mumbai.
The series progresses with everyday life explored through conversation between the couple. The language used is English, with a few sentences in Hindi (used mostly in slang).
Cast
Main
*
Mithila Palkar
Mithila Palkar (born 11 January 1993) is an Indian actress known for her characters in the TV series ''Girl in the City'' and Netflix's '' Little Things''. She rose to prominence in March 2016 with her Marathi version of the " cup song". Palkar ...
as Kavya Kulkarni
*
Dhruv Sehgal
Dhruv Sehgal (born 19 March 1990) is an Indian actor, writer and director. He is best known for his work in Dice Media's '' Little Things'', where he portrayed Dhruv Vats alongside Mithila Palkar.
Life and career
Sehgal is from Delhi. After ...
as Dhruv Vats
Recurring
* Abhishek Bhalerao as Murthy
*
Navni Parihar
Navni Parihar is an Indian film and television actress. She made her debut with the TV serial '' Mujrim Haazir'' as the main lead alongside Nutan and Utpal Dutt''.'' In the 90s, she was one of the most sought after top lead actresses of televisi ...
as Ila Kulkarni, Kavya's mother
*Rishi Deshpande as Satish Kulkarni, Kavya's father
*Asheesh Kapur (Season 2 & 3)
*Vikram Kochhar as Dhruv's friend (Season 2 & 3)
*Lovleen Mishra as Dhruv's mother (Season 3)
*Aman Bhagat as Karan (Season 1)
*Veer Rajwant Singh as Akash (Season 1)
*Palvi Jaiswal as Sana (Season 1)
*Sanjay Gurbaxani as Kavya's boss (Season 1)
*Bharat Pahuja as visitor (Season 1)
*Paresh Pahuja as Raunak (Season 2)
*Kanak Raju as coaching teacher (Season 2)
*Priyanka Arya as Sushmita (Season 3)
*Ashish Bhatia as Amey (Season 3)
*Chandrakant as old watchman (Season 3)
*Shikha Chowdary as Anmol (Season 3)
*Dhruvin Doshi as Suraj (Season 3)
*Sainika Ghaises as Nupur (Season 3)
*Martin Jishil as Sandeep (Season 3)
*Aakash Khemchandani as Piyush (Season 3)
*Hitesh Shejpai as Shenoy (Season 3)
*Sarla Shah as Mrs. D'Mello (Season 3)
*
Vivaan Shah
Vivaan Shah (born 11 January 1990) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films. He made his film debut with '' Saat Khoon Maaf'' (2011) as Arun Kumar. Thereafter, he signed a three-film deal with director Vishal Bhardwaj. In 2014, he was given ...
(Season 3)
*Abhay verma (Season 3)
*Ayush Sehgal as Omkar (Season 4)
*Tamara as Ishu (Season 4)
*Shiv Tandon as Sanket Lalwani (Season 3 & 4)
*Eisha Chopra as Nandini (Season 2 & 4)
Episodes
Season 1 (2016)
Season 2 (2018)
Season 3 (2019)
Season 4 (2021)
Production
Dhruv Sehgal
Dhruv Sehgal (born 19 March 1990) is an Indian actor, writer and director. He is best known for his work in Dice Media's '' Little Things'', where he portrayed Dhruv Vats alongside Mithila Palkar.
Life and career
Sehgal is from Delhi. After ...
, started writing for the new series in late 2015,
featuring
Mithila Palkar
Mithila Palkar (born 11 January 1993) is an Indian actress known for her characters in the TV series ''Girl in the City'' and Netflix's '' Little Things''. She rose to prominence in March 2016 with her Marathi version of the " cup song". Palkar ...
who have previously acted in short videos by Dice Media and Filter Copy,
and have known each other since Palkar's time working at ''Thespo'' (Quasar Theatre Productions' annual theatre festival). Sehgal had asked her to audition for Filter Copy's new satire show on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
called ''News Darshan''. The series' first season was directed by Ajay Bhuyan and had an episode runtime of 15 minutes each.
The series is produced by Aditi Shrivastava, Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh. The second and third season was directed by Ruchir Arun, who is a
National Award
The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorate ...
winner.
Themes
The series explores multiple themes, related to everyday life and the problems and challenges faced in it. Season 1 explored themes like a
fear of missing out (FOMO) caused by
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
and late-night cravings for food. Season 2 explored more serious themes like personal and professional crises. Dhruv is seen reconnecting with an old friend and realising that they have grown apart. He is later seen quitting his job due to a loss of interest. Dhruv is then seen as being "aimless" while Kavya has received a promotion and a pay hike, which leads to fights as they realise the differences between them. Other themes explored in the second season include Kavya getting attracted to a biker on an office trip, homophobia and the possibility of considering one's parents as friends.
Season 3 further explores Dhruv and Kavya's relationship (which had hit a rough patch at the end of Season 2) with them venturing into a
long-distance relationship.
They thus begin to face loneliness (due to staying apart from one another) and learn to deal with it. They eventually realize that they can also be happy with other people. The two of them also have additional responsibilities and pity themselves. They reconnect with childhood friends and Kavya faces the fear of losing a loved one, her neighbour's dog, Kaju. They both discuss the possibility of marriage and their views on the topic are explored through an episode consisting of flashbacks. While visiting their parents, they realize that they are growing old. Additionally, the season explores the social structures of the big cities, commenting on how the urbanisation results in a loss of humanity.
Soundtrack
The music and background score is composed by Neel Adhikari, and the series features a theme song composed by
Prateek Kuhad
Prateek Kuhad is an Indian singer-songwriter and musician who makes independent music in Hindi and English. He is best known for his track "cold/mess".
Early life and career
Kuhad was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan in a Hindu Jat family and has tw ...
specially for it.
Season 1
* "Song for Survival" - Neel Adhikari, Mithila Palkar
* "Food for Thought" - Neel Adhikari
* "Hot or Cold Down There" - Neel Adhikari
* "Luca's Lullaby" - Neel Adhikari
* "Mountaintop Two" - Neel Adhikari
* "Pots N' Pans" - Neel Adhikari, Clovis Soo
* "RocknRolla" - Neel Adhikari
Season 2
* "Musalsal" - Neel Adhikari
* "I Forgive You" - Neel Adhikari
* "Surprise" - Neel Adhikari
* "Okay" - Neel Adhikari
* "Parchai" - Neel Adhikari
Release
The first season of the series was premiered through Dice Media's
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
channel, from 25 October 2016 to 22 November 2016.
It became a thundering success, with the first episode, which premiered on 25 October, gained over 15 million views, upon its initial release.
Later, Netflix collaborated with Dice Media, to acquire the rights for the second season, which was released on 5 October 2018.
Netflix announced that the show would be renewed for a third season, with a release date of 9 November 2019.
Reception
Rohan Naahar of ''
Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...
'' gave it a rating of 4/5 and went on to write "
he show
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
relies more heavily on performances than most others".
Soumya Rao, writing for ''
Scroll.in
''Scroll.in'', simply referred to as ''Scroll'', is an Indian digital news publication owned by the Scroll Media Incorporation. It publishes content in both Hindi and English languages. Founded in 2014, the website and its journalists have won ...
'', called the show "frequently charming, often relatable and never boring". Prakhya Nair of ''The Red Sparrow'' rated it 3.5 stars and recommended it to "anyone who wants to delve in a real relationship for a while".
Anvita Singh, writing for ''
The Indian Express
''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...
'', opines that "
he show
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
would have worked better if it had four episodes of 15 minutes each, instead of the eight episodes, each over 22 minutes long" and also critiqued that the second season lacked the show's "sweet-natured relatability".
Other media
Season 1 of the series was published as a book by
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House.
On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase ...
in August 2017. A 20-episode prequel audio series ''Little Things: Jab Dhruv Met Kavya'' narrated by Sehgal and Palkar was released on
Audible
Audible may refer to:
* Audible (service), an online audiobook store
* Audible (American football), a tactic used by quarterbacks
* ''Audible'' (film), a short documentary film featuring a deaf high school football player
* Audible finish or ru ...
in September 2022.
Awards
References
External links
*
*
{{Netflix original continuation series, state=collapsed
2016 Indian television series debuts
English-language Netflix original programming
Indian drama television series
Television shows set in Mumbai
Indian television series distributed by Netflix