An honest effort

The good thing about this show is that the main protagonist is actually a well-developed character. Not a sleazy clone of a hundred similar protagonists out there on TV. She is a multi-layered person who only appears to be strict and controlling on the surface. But on the inside, she is just as human as you and me, has feelings, gets hurt and probably feels like crying too. Being the only breadwinner of the family, she took on more than her share of responsibility and yet managed to juggle all of them successfully. Why I identify with this character to a great extent is because I have a mom who works day and night, without forfeiting upon any of her responsibilities. I know what is feels like to be at the helm of things and knowing that you can't afford to make even a single mistake.

Coming to the family, I'm so glad that one show has finally managed to capture the typically dysfunctional Indian middle class family, where all people suffer from the perennial denial syndrome and live in their own fantasy land, where all issues and problems are conveniently ignored and passed on to the next person until one person comes along and accepts that bucket of thorns gladly (in this case, Indira), where people would rather avoid communicating about the truth than try to face it. Oh yes, this show gets it all.

A mother who is more than willing to accept her philandering, irresponsible husband with open arms, who cannot see anything beyond the men in her life, no matter how worthless they may be, who cannot acknowledge the effort her elder daughter puts in to keep her and the rest of the family safe - which essentially was her husband's job.

A sister in law who thinks food is the solution to every problem, who thinks her husband is god's gift to the earth, who is blind to the fact that her husband does not even contribute 1% towards her son's upbringing, which was essentially his job, and which is again being done by Indira.

A brother who does not see his lack of education as a flaw but rather boasts proudly of it through his rowdy and irresponsible behavior, who can only talk about taking care of his son but when it comes to actually doing something, gets reduced to a pile of goo, who does not realize that raising a child is no joke and no matter what, you have to contribute towards his life as someone who is partly responsible for bringing him in this world.

A father who simply does not care about the family, who eloped with a bengali beauty and still has the audacity to show up the front door.

All these so-called 'adults' have no respect for the only person who is taking the pains of looking after such a useless bunch of nincompoops. Ironically the only person who seems to have any understanding of her struggle is the kid Ishan, who may not realize the gravity of her efforts, but definitely understands that she's the one who takes care of everyone.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with this show so far. I just hope the creatives don't convert it into the same ol' love story. Perhaps there will be a subplot involving Indira and Rishi but I hope it does not overshadow the real story.

Thanks for reading this!