Well I love strong characters especially if they are grey. And after Durga and Sakshi of EHT, I am loving the 2 woman of Manmariziyaan. Piyaali and Samaira.
Piyali is not an antagonist, but a woman who may have struggled a lot in her days to reach the position where she is. Her struggles and success has given this woman a great superiority complex and a feeling that without her nothing will move. Everyone should be thankful to her for whatever she has done to them. This thankfulness is not an expectation, it is a demand that she feels she is worthy of.
Yes we don't know Piyali's backstory yet, but considering her age the generation in which she grew up would have had boy preference and she had to prove herself again and again to get her rights. And this struggle is unconsciously in her mind which she takes on her daughter Samaira. She feels a girl has to earn it, there might be easy way for a boy, but not for a girl. In addition to that her ego doesn't allow her to appreciate her daughter. Her ego is hurt when a firm decides to take the ad campaign to the firm where Samaira is and when she gets the oppourtunity to hit back at Sam, she uses Radhika as a weapon to hit her back.
Now Samaira. Yes she is right in her own way. She is a very talented young lady. She deserves to be appreciated. But the problem with her is that she also has never tried to understand why her mother behaves the way she is. After most face offs if you see Samrat mostly points fingers at his wife than at Sam. It is time she is told what her mother had gone through to reach where she is. Only if she knows her mother's journey she will be able to appreciate her more because she will understand why her mother behaves the way she is. At this point for Samaira, Piyali appears a woman who doesn't see the talent in her, always want to find complaints about her, find reasons to downgrade her.
Same is the case with Piyali. She doesn't see the daughter in Samaira on whose success she as a mother should feel proud. If Sam goes above her, it is a fact that she is only taking the Khanna name to greater heights.
At present Piyali and Sam are the 2 employees of the Birdsong who are at logger heads about their talent. Turning point will be when they learn to be mother and daughter whose combined talent can take Birdsong to newer heights.