10 Iconic Indian OTT Characters: Srikant Tiwari, Munna Bhaiya And More

Written By: Entertainment Desk

Aug 25, 2026 13:50 IST ⓘ

10 iconic Indian OTT characters who became unforgettable parts of streaming culture.

The rise of Indian streaming did more than change where audiences watched stories. It changed the kind of characters who were allowed to lead them. A hero no longer needed a grand entrance, perfect hair or a background score announcing his arrival. He could be an exhausted police officer ignored by his department, a coaching teacher carrying the emotional burden of hundreds of students or a married intelligence agent who could foil a terrorist plot but not his children’s sarcasm.

Streaming also gave morally complicated characters room to breathe. Gangsters narrated their own mythology, homemakers gradually discovered political authority and financial fraudsters became alarmingly charismatic. Several performances did not simply make their respective shows successful; they shaped the language, humour and identity of India’s expanding OTT culture.

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From Munna Bhaiya turning poor impulse control into a personality to Srikant Tiwari becoming the country’s most relatable secret agent, here are 10 characters that helped define Indian OTT.

1. Munna Bhaiya - Divyenndu in ‘Mirzapur’

Few characters have treated impulse control as personally insulting as Phoolchand “Munna” Tripathi. Played by Divyenndu, Munna entered ‘Mirzapur’ as the violent, insecure and dangerously entitled son of crime lord Akhandanand Tripathi, better known as Kaleen Bhaiya. He wanted his father’s throne immediately, although patience, judgment and basic emotional stability were not among his qualifications.

Created by Karan Anshuman and Puneet Krishna, the crime drama premiered on Prime Video on 16 November 2018. Its first season was directed by Karan Anshuman, Gurmmeet Singh and Mihir Desai and starred Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Divyenndu, Vikrant Massey, Shweta Tripathi Sharma and Rasika Dugal. Munna became the show’s chaotic engine because Divyenndu made him funny, frightening and oddly wounded without trying to excuse his brutality. His dialogues, facial expressions and enormous confidence in terrible decisions became meme material, while his absence from the third season was loudly felt by viewers. The fandom proved powerful enough to bend fictional mortality: Divyenndu is returning as Munna in ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’, scheduled to reach cinemas on 4 September.

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2. Srikant Tiwari - Manoj Bajpayee in ‘The Family Man’

Srikant Tiwari is the rare screen spy whose biggest enemies include terrorists, international conspiracies, office bureaucracy, marital tension and teenage eye-rolls. Manoj Bajpayee plays him as an intelligence officer who is highly competent in the field but frequently helpless at home. He lies about his job, forgets family commitments, worries about money and somehow continues saving the country while looking as though he has not slept properly in years.

Created by Raj & DK, ‘The Family Man’ premiered on Prime Video on 20 September 2019. Its principal cast also includes Priyamani, Sharib Hashmi, Ashlesha Thakur and Vedant Sinha, with Samantha Ruth Prabhu becoming central to Season 2 and Jaideep Ahlawat and Nimrat Kaur joining Season 3. Raj & DK directed the first season, while Suparn S Varma joined them as a director on the second; the third was directed by Raj & DK, Suman Kumar and Tusshar Seyth. What made Srikant iconic was the collision between two familiar genres: he possessed the skills of a world-class operative but lived the life of a middle-class working parent. The third season, released on 21 November 2025, pushed him into even more dangerous territory, but his dry humour and battered domestic life remained the franchise’s secret weapons.

3. Ganesh Gaitonde - Nawazuddin Siddiqui in ‘Sacred Games’

Before Indian streaming had developed a reliable formula, Ganesh Gaitonde arrived and behaved as if the entire medium belonged to him. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s gangster introduced himself through a phone call, narrated his rise like a personal legend and delivered “Kabhi kabhi lagta hai apun hi bhagwan hai” with enough conviction to supply the internet with captions for years.

Adapted from Vikram Chandra’s novel, ‘Sacred Games’ became Netflix’s first Indian original series when its opening season premiered on 6 July 2018. Vikramaditya Motwane directed Saif Ali Khan’s Sartaj Singh portions, while Anurag Kashyap handled Gaitonde’s timeline. The principal cast also included Radhika Apte, Kubbra Sait, Jitendra Joshi and Pankaj Tripathi. Gaitonde was far more than a conventional gangster. He could be arrogant, superstitious, cruel, frightened and desperately hungry for significance within the same episode. Nawazuddin made the character’s self-created mythology irresistible even when the man beneath it was collapsing. ‘Sacred Games’ demonstrated that an Indian streaming series could be cinematic, globally distributed and culturally specific without diluting its language or politics.

4. Harshad Mehta - Pratik Gandhi in ‘Scam 1992’

Pratik Gandhi’s Harshad Mehta made financial terminology sound like mass entertainment. Before ‘Scam 1992’, phrases involving money markets, bank receipts and securities could make a casual viewer reach for the remote. After the series, people who had never purchased a share were discussing the Bombay Stock Exchange and declaring, “Risk hai toh ishq hai”.

Directed by Hansal Mehta and Jai Mehta, ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story’ premiered on SonyLIV on 9 October 2020. Adapted from Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu’s book ‘The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away’, it starred Pratik Gandhi, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Hemant Kher, Anjali Barot and Satish Kaushik. Pratik avoided playing Harshad as either a simple criminal or an uncomplicated folk hero. His enormous confidence, quick intelligence, ambition and talent for selling his own legend made audiences understand the attraction of the “Big Bull” even while watching his empire unravel. The role turned Pratik from a respected Gujarati theatre and film actor into a nationally recognised star, while Achint Thakkar’s theme music became almost as famous as the character.

5. Hathiram Chaudhary - Jaideep Ahlawat in ‘Paatal Lok’

Hathiram Chaudhary did not enter ‘Paatal Lok’ like a heroic police officer. He shuffled into it carrying professional disappointment, domestic frustration and the knowledge that practically nobody at work considered him important. Jaideep Ahlawat’s slouched posture and weary silences told audiences everything about a man who had spent years waiting for one case to prove he was not a failure.

Created by Sudip Sharma, the first season of ‘Paatal Lok’ premiered on Prime Video on 15 May 2020 and was directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy. Jaideep led a cast featuring Ishwak Singh, Gul Panag, Neeraj Kabi, Swastika Mukherjee and Abhishek Banerjee. A second season, directed by Avinash Arun and featuring Tillotama Shome, arrived on 17 January 2025. Hathiram became iconic because he was neither a supercop nor a convenient moral compass. He was prejudiced, insecure and frequently outmatched, but capable of changing when the investigation forced him to confront worlds he had previously ignored. His journey through the show’s “swarg”, “dharti” and “paatal” was also a journey through class, caste, violence and institutional power. Jaideep won major OTT honours for both seasons.

6. Jeetu Bhaiya - Jitendra Kumar in ‘Kota Factory’

Every student in Kota had teachers, but viewers quickly decided that what they really needed was Jeetu Bhaiya. Played by Jitendra Kumar, the physics teacher spoke to students like an elder brother who understood that clearing an examination and surviving the pressure surrounding it were two different challenges. His advice could be motivational without sounding like a forwarded WhatsApp message.

Created by Arunabh Kumar, Saurabh Khanna and Raghav Subbu, ‘Kota Factory’ first premiered on TVFPlay and YouTube on 16 April 2019 before moving to Netflix from its second season. Raghav Subbu directed the original season, while Pratish Mehta directed Season 3. The main cast includes Mayur More, Jitendra Kumar, Ranjan Raj, Alam Khan, Ahsaas Channa, Revathi Pillai and Urvi Singh. Although Vaibhav was technically the central student, Jeetu Bhaiya became the emotional centre of the black-and-white series. His accessibility made him comforting, while later seasons explored the dangerous cost of expecting one teacher to serve as counsellor, guardian and emotional emergency service for an entire coaching ecosystem.

7. Vartika Chaturvedi - Shefali Shah in ‘Delhi Crime’

Shefali Shah’s Vartika Chaturvedi never needed a slow-motion police entry or a punchline before an arrest. Her authority came from focus. In the first season of ‘Delhi Crime’, Vartika assembled and drove the police investigation following the 2012 Delhi gang rape, carrying the responsibility of the case while confronting exhausted personnel, public fury, media pressure and institutional limitations.

Created, written and directed in its first season by Richie Mehta, ‘Delhi Crime’ premiered on Netflix on 22 March 2019. Shefali led an ensemble featuring Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang, Adil Hussain and Anurag Arora; Huma Qureshi joined the third season, which arrived on 13 November 2025. The character was inspired by former Delhi Police officer Chhaya Sharma, who was part of the real investigation. Vartika became iconic because Shefali played command without turning it into spectacle. Her restrained anger, clipped instructions and visible fatigue made the character feel like an experienced professional rather than an actor performing competence. The first season became the first Indian series to win the International Emmy for Best Drama, but even without that landmark victory, Vartika had already changed the grammar of the Indian screen cop.

8. Aarya Sareen - Sushmita Sen in ‘Aarya’

Sushmita Sen’s return to acting did not arrive politely – it stared down a criminal syndicate. In ‘Aarya’, she played Aarya Sareen, a wife and mother forced to enter her family’s illegal business after her husband’s murder places her children in danger. The character’s transformation from protected spouse to formidable operator could easily have become an overnight “mafia queen” fantasy. Instead, Sushmita preserved Aarya’s fear, grief and maternal instinct even as her power grew.

Adapted from the Dutch drama ‘Penoza’, the series was co-created by Ram Madhvani and Sandeep Modi. Its first season was directed by Madhvani, Modi and Vinod Rawat and premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 19 June 2020. The principal cast also included Chandrachur Singh, Sikander Kher, Ankur Bhatia and Vikas Kumar. Across three seasons, concluding in February 2024, ‘Aarya’ kept crossing moral lines in the name of protecting her family until safety and power became nearly impossible to separate. The first season also secured an International Emmy nomination for Best Drama Series.

9. Manju Devi - Neena Gupta in ‘Panchayat’

When ‘Panchayat’ began, Manju Devi was officially Phulera’s elected pradhan but her husband, Brij Bhushan Dubey, performed most of the job. She appeared more interested in her household and daughter than in administrative files. A less patient series might have transformed her into a fiery leader within two episodes. ‘Panchayat’ understood that real change often arrives one awkward meeting, village crisis and reluctant decision at a time.

Created by TVF, written by Chandan Kumar and originally directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra, ‘Panchayat’ premiered on Prime Video on 3 April 2020. Its principal cast includes Jitendra Kumar, Raghubir Yadav, Neena Gupta, Chandan Roy, Faisal Malik and Sanvikaa. Neena’s performance made Manju Devi funny without mocking her and authoritative without suddenly changing her personality. Over four seasons, her signature gradually became a voice, and her position developed from a technicality into a responsibility she understood and defended. The character also represented what made ‘Panchayat’ revolutionary in its own gentle fashion: it found drama in rural administration, water tanks, roads, elections and everyday relationships instead of manufacturing crime merely to appear edgy. With a fifth season confirmed for 2026, Manju Devi’s political education is far from complete.

10. Madhav Mishra - Pankaj Tripathi in ‘Criminal Justice’

Indian courtroom dramas traditionally favour lawyers who deliver thunderous speeches and silence everyone before the judge can locate the gavel. Madhav Mishra took a quieter route. Played by Pankaj Tripathi, he appeared modest, slightly rumpled and almost too relaxed for the murder cases landing on his desk. Then he began asking inconvenient questions, noticing ignored details and dismantling confident arguments with the patience of a man who knew everyone else would eventually underestimate him.

Adapted from the BBC series created by Peter Moffat, the first Indian season of ‘Criminal Justice’ was written by Shridhar Raghavan and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia and Vishal Furia. It premiered on Hotstar on 5 April 2019 and starred Vikrant Massey, Pankaj Tripathi, Jackie Shroff, Anupriya Goenka and Mita Vashisht. While the cases and supporting casts changed, Madhav became the connecting thread across four installments. The latest, ‘Criminal Justice: A Family Matter’, was directed by Rohan Sippy and streamed on JioHotstar between 29 May and 3 July 2025. Pankaj’s mixture of wit, empathy and deceptive simplicity turned what began as a supporting lawyer into the face of the franchise.

Honourable Mentions

Pankaj Tripathi deserves a second salute for his portrayal of Akhandanand Tripathi, better known as Kaleen Bhaiya, in ‘Mirzapur’. Introduced in 2018 as the outwardly respectable owner of a carpet business and the quietly feared ruler of Mirzapur’s criminal empire, Kaleen rarely needs to shout or reach for a gun to establish his authority. Pankaj Tripathi’s measured dialogue delivery, unreadable expressions and almost unnerving calm turned the character into one of Indian streaming’s most recognisable gangsters. Even when Munna Bhaiya was creating chaos, it was Kaleen Bhaiya’s approval – and anger – that everyone feared.

Several other characters came equally close to making the final ten. Sobhita Dhulipala’s fiercely ambitious Tara Khanna in ‘Made in Heaven’, Kay Kay Menon’s razor-sharp intelligence officer Himmat Singh in ‘Special OPS’, Huma Qureshi’s formidable Rani Bharti in ‘Maharani’ and Geetanjali Kulkarni’s wonderfully relatable Shanti Mishra in ‘Gullak’ have all earned devoted followings. They may have missed a place on this particular list, but they remain an essential part of Indian OTT’s character hall of fame.