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Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi season 2 review: 25 years later, we’re still serving regressive ideas and calling it nostalgia

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Shachi Lavingia
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Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi

Episode 1 and 2 of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi season 2 sells the same story with no naye vichaar so far.

It was 2003; I was 11 years old; Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi was to take a leap and newer characters were going to be introduced. I was at a friend’s birthday party and I don’t remember being that upset over a TV show ever again. I had missed the episode because my mother didn’t care that I valued watching an episode over attending a birthday party. There was no YouTube or OTT platforms to fall back on; all we had were repeat telecasts which played during school hours. Can you imagine my disappointment? That’s how invested I was in a show about a Gujarati family with questionable Gujarati speaking skills, who kept looking for reasons to misunderstand each other for 8 years. 

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The 11 year old me lived off these television shows, produced by Ekta Kapoor, not for the drama they offered but for the “hum saath saath hai” delusion that Indian families are made of while they tear each other apart.

Come hail or storm, Indian families stick together; stealing from the family business, kidnapping your child, emotionally manipulating you daily - included. But ask for basic human rights as a woman and watch the entire family squirm like you’ve just asked for a piece of China! Why married women relate to this show, and many others like this, is understandable - it reflects their lived reality. But how this is popular across the country in other age dynamics too? I’ll never solve that mystery!

25 years later, this iconic TV show is back with the same sanskaar but nayi soch where “papa ko aapki madad karni chaiye” is seen as progressive, a basic argument between mother daughter is seen as “tufaaan aane wala hai” and Tulsi going to jail to bring her son home has the backdrop of the tulsi plant moving vigorously because of the weather and the diya’s cover falls off, because this family is in danger of its children acting like children.

Maybe two episodes is too less to judge a show that’s releasing after so many years but it’s impossible to look past the farce here. The difference in watching both seasons is, today, I’m the bahu. And instead of being schmitten by these tales like I used to, this plot now makes me angry; watching a woman keep sacrificing herself to be everything for everyone just to be treated like a doormat? She isn’t even a part of her own priorities’ list; she’s arranged a massive anniversary party where her children have come from NYC, the food has “ghar ka tadka and swaad” but she hasn’t put in any thought into what she should be wearing for her big day. Why are we still glorifying this?

She’s being fatshamed by her daughter because she doesn’t make time for herself but the daughter does nothing to change her mom’s reality either - “papa ko dekho, woh kitne fit hai!” Papa aur kuch nahi karte, beta.

A remix of Ram Ram Jaya Raja Ram and Achutam Keshavam as the background score with the title song playing every now and then brings up tons of nostalgia just like coming across some of the older characters does but that’s all that this show has going for it - melancholy. I wished, no, I’d desperately hoped that this season would actually reflect the journey of the saas and the bahu, their dreams and hopes, their marriages, intertwined relationships and via it all, how they hold the fort together and support each other while building their own selves up. Clearly, that’s way too much to ask for!

If cinema reflects our society, why can’t this show reflect that part of society it’s trying so hard to convince us it belongs to? What purpose is it serving to glorify sacrifice in the name of sanskaar even in 2025? Because forget reflecting society, all that these shows end up doing is making real women come up short even today because no matter what they do, who they are and what they achieve, they’re asked to stay in their lane, at the bottom of the food chain.

Released in 2021, Anupamaa weaved a similar tale but actually went on to say something different. She was the epitome of sanskaar, her life revolved around her sansaar until her husband cheated on her and she finally learned to choose herself. But of course that didn’t last for long.


Call me cynical, call me foolish - one thing is for certain. Till society exists in India, shows like this will always have an audience because most people need an excuse to treat women like the one they see being represented onscreen. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll ask you to remember the last time you heard your dad ask your mom what she’s been doing all day anyway that she doesn’t know who you’re dating!

While this is my opinion, let see what the Janta is saying!

Have you watched episode 1 & 2? What’s your take on them? Tell us in the comments below!

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Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi