In Defense of Gauri Kumari Ssarma.

Note - Just gathering some of my thoughts in defense of why RiKara works as an idea and Gauri Kumari Ssarma in general. These are basically just posts/replies I've posted on different pages of different topics but they are all related. I didn't intend to make a post in defense but then I thought there should be some positive discourse on these subjects as well cuz I felt the negativity was too strong and there are fans who genuinely like and enjoy this story that the creators of DBO have planned. So it's a very "pro-DBO" post and if anyone feels like it's not their jam, please hit the back button and don't bother reading further ahead.

(I also know the post is FULL of typos but kindly ignore xD)


I guess what makes RiKara hard to get into initially is because the parent show has produced two couples which are based on the idea of opposites. Shivika and Rumya's idea is all about opposites colliding. Hence the whole "takkar ki ishqbaazi". Omkara was promised the same. Ishaana didn't take off for whatever reason but whatever...she was supposed to be the Lie to Omkara's Truth. Now Omkara's priority is no longer just Truth. Sure, he still needs to be taught that some lies are alright when it comes to survival (and woah! Gauri fits that bill as well!) But right now..Omkara is losing his identity. Yes, Omkara is a multi dimensional character and the darkness was always the inherent part of me. But darkness is not a happy place for Omkara. He's too sensitive and emotionally vulnerable. The more he interacts with these people who have ulterior motives, are selfish, and who don't care about the consequences as long as they get what they want...the more cynical Omkara becomes. Omkara is at that stage where legit his only smiles comes from his brothers. He isn't even finding solace in his art any more.

And this is precisely what makes me think, does Omkara really need someone equally serious in life? Does he really need one more addition in his life with whom he'll constantly have to battle? What kind of twisted and tumultuous life would that be where easy peace would be so scarce?

It's not like Gauri is a ditzy female who has no basic common sense. Just because she has a chirpier outlook towards life doesn't make her an insensible soul. She knows how the world works and how to balance faith and practicality...and if she does it all while saying funny lines in a not-so-posh accent..so what? Since when did these qualities become a standard for being mature? Gauri is Omkara's mirror who can show Omkara just how much he flawed his perception of people is. She is his mirror because she possesses the same qualities as him but unlike him, her ideals haven't been tainted yet. Also, as I said above, she can teach Omkara a thing or two about not judging everyone's situations from the same angle. Omkara saw Svetlana in Gauri and he became so convinced that what he saw was the reality, he managed to miss the truth which was right in front of him.

Gauri can show it all to him and bring him back to the light before he completely loses his identity and breaks up with the very thought of happiness. Not because she wants to prove a point that she's right and he's wrong. But because she NEEDS him to be happy. She's such a compassionate soul that she risked her own neck to save his life and back then he was a stranger to him. But now she feels she is bound to him (wo maane na maane alag qissa hai) so she NEEDS him to be happy. She's the one person in life who doesn't want anything from Omkara, not acknowledgement nor protection. Which is such a !!!! concept for Omkara that it will be hard for him to accept it at first.



Look, I agree. I agree Gauri comes across as a regressive character because she practically worships her "husband" and any person related to him. She reverently touches the ground he walks on, she doesn't hesitate in touching the feet of Omkara's elders. All of this is such a stark contrast to what a modern woman ought to be. I know a LOT of Omkara's fans wanted a modern woman for him. Someone educated, chic, urban; someone who was on equal grounds at him and didn't put him in a higher position than herself.

But we have to understand where Gauri comes from. Not only she isn't highly educated, she literally relies on her Gods to get her through the day. She doesn't have a father in her life so she made her Shiv Ji her father and actually "bribes" other Gods by saying his name. That's the kind of mentality she has because she was brought up that way. But that shouldn't take away from everything else that her character is. And this saddens me because the fandom only focuses on these attributes of her and completely disregard everything else. Gauri is a tech savy girl who not prays to Shankar Bhagwan to help her in troubles but also turns to her Internet Chachi for help. She's part of the urban world because of how aware she is of the modern technology. Sure, her lingo isn't the cleanest but her ideals are very positive and intact. Put her in a position where she has to fight for her survival and you'll watch her come out of it victorious.

Would I like to see her not worship Omkara like some god? HELL FREAKIN' YEAH! But all of those actions of her don't bother me because that's not ALL her character is. And I hope people will see that. It would be problematic if this girl completely makes Omkara accepting her as his wife as her ONLY way of living. But she didn't, she doesn't, and if the writers remain true to her character, she wouldn't. She toh never wanted to even see Omkara again. But now she's in his house, in his room, her job is to be around her...it becomes darn impossible for her to not be affected by a person who she has claimed as someone higher than him. YEARS of upbringing because of her surroundings has drilled these thoughts in her head. It's impossible for her to unlearn that all in a day.

If there's anyone who is to be blamed for Gauri being regressive, it's the society which for years have presented religion in a way where a woman HAS to be submissive to her husband. Gauri is a religious person so of course she believes that. She doesn't have the high-end degree and literature to realize that it's not how it works. I toh think that the writers have done a pretty good job in making Gauri religious by showing her abiding to these baffling customs all the while making her modern because of her smartness and ability to fend for herself without relying on others.


Well can't Omkara teach her to treat him like a human being? And not like some god? Of course Omkara wouldn't appreciate her servitude because that's not how he is functioned. He's against the whole NKK ideology which by extension also means he's against the master and servant equation in any relationship. But Gauri doesn't know that. She has never SEEN a relationship which is based on equality, has she? So she is acting the only way she has seen things around her and how she is taught to behave. There's nothing baffling about that. Gauri's "Pati parmeshwar" mode is problematic, who is denying that? But has anyone taught her that? It's not like she is turning a blind eye towards the modern idea of a marriage. She doesn't even KNOW what that is! If Gauri's role in Omkara's life is to teach him to be non-cynical about love and get him back to his roots of being a compassionate person, why is it hard to believe that Omkara's part in Gauri's life can be to teach her that the best relationships are those where the partners have a mutual love and respect for each other. Not this whole putting on pedestal thing..


I feel like a LOT of issues the fandom has is solely because of their own ideas. Everyone, even me, has made up a certain story in our head about how these characters will shape up to be. We are basing it on the previous knowledge of the characters, on how the PH works, or just basically how Desi Shows all end up being. It was Anand Sivakumaran, a CV of Sunshine Productions who worked on shows like Miley Jab Hum Tum and The Buddy Project who had told me this, "Don't react to things as how you want them to be but instead of how they actually are." And these are the words that are etched on my heart whenever I watch TV now. He told me how the fans tend to make up these giant stories in our heads of our favorite characters, which is good because it shows a level of love we have for these stories, but such things don't work for Desi TV who is so relied on the ratings. A track can change overnight because ratings aren't well. Characterizations can be completely altered because the head honchos of the channel or the production house said so. So when the whole creative process is so unreliable, how can we expect that things are bound to go only a certain way because that's how they were started/promised?

This is what's happening here. Just based on rough ideas of how Gauri and Omkara will end up being like, there are comments like, "Oh they have no intensity" or someone is saying "Wow they are actually good together!" Because the point is...we haven't even GOTTEN Gauri and Omkara yet. In a way yes, their story has started. But they haven't even properly interacted yet. Sure, being Chulbul allows Gauri to see how screwed up Omkara's family life is. It allows her the chance to silently help and support Omkara and give him something to smile about. But Omkara doesn't even know about Gauri being around him. Heck, he hasn't even struck a deep bond with Chulbul yet! To him, Chulbul is just an endearing kid who is just..."sweet".

The fault lies with the CVs who aren't doing anything with these two characters. I've been reading stuff like, "Bareilly wali Gauri was better...this Mumbai Gauri has lost her spunk.." and it just makes me think in my head that the situation in Bareilly was so drastically different. Of course she would behave differently there. Here there is no situation which is making her run for her life and fight for her survival. The situation in Mumbai is light enough for her to act goofy (which is REALLY how a staple FL of 4Lions acts like) If the writers won't give her situations where she gets the center stage, how can we say she has lost her spunk? Right now DBO is a Svetlana show. She takes the center stage, everyone else revolve around her. Gauri/Chulbul is there to just react. She doesn't have her own track. There has been no legitimate progress between her and Omkara except for a funny angle of Omkara questioning his sexuality. Jab tak wo MILEGA hi nahin, how can we say what's right and what's wrong?

I really urge the CVs to speed up this process of eliminating Svetlana so that the leads can take the center stage. Isn't that why the whole spin off was created in the first place? The RiKara fans are surviving solely on the idea of the payoff being worth it. The non-RiKara fans have had VERY little chance to warm up to RiKara owing to them not getting any substantial growth. Then there's this other section of the fandom who toh have no IDEA when their story will start? All because the CVs just can't get enough of Svetlana and they end up bringing in more tracks and scenes for her which end up just annoying us. This is not what they made a spin off for, this is NOT what we signed up for! :@

Sigh. I'll never not get angry at the very mention of Svetlana -_-

Gauri is perfect for Om. She is the one person whom he needed.
Now Omakara is not the one whom we knew. He dont beleive in God and in love. Gauri here for bring back his vishwas, show him life is not dark..Life is colorfull, make him believe in love again, make him undst love is not only pain. Thats why Gauri like this. It is her character. Also she is here to make Om undst sometime person is lie for beloved one but it is not making him bad. Thats why Gauri is here. Dont forget Omkara s character lost vishwas and Gauri opp him in this case for her vishvas everything.

Awesome post Mais.

All I would like to say is her character deserves a fair chance from the audience. If there are flaws, its not to do with portrayal but the storyline. Swetlana is the current focus so we are not able to see more sides to Gauri other than her disguise Chulbul and the person we assume we know from all the village scenes. TBH, still salute her spirit for coming to the city alone, losing everything, finding a job and paying for her mother's expenses despite her educational qualifications. It takes guts to be in the same house as your husband and yet demand no rights from him (which is an oxymoron of sorts: It seems like a flaw yet is her biggest strength for the time being) Her backstory is yet to be revealed, only then can we reach conclusions on her characterisation. We need to stop comparing her to others and justify how she is in fact bringing in a subtle positive change in Om's demeanour even now.

"Don't react to things as how you want them to be but instead of how they actually are."

Forget to say about it...It is true.

My friend said the same things to me when I said my view about story of one couple. He said

"Probaly it is good but writters how different opinion and their own view on story. Better accept it and watch...If u cant just change channel."

I actually had a problem with Gauri's OTT bubbly nature because we already had a character like Anika. That was the main reason for many people disliking Gauri. She is a copy-paste, a more louder version of Anika. The 3 brothers were different in thoughts and personality, so we all expected that their love interests will be also different from each other. Even if Om needed a more positive girl, that doesn't means she should be a comedian. I wanted a posh and mature girl because I wanted some difference between Anika and Om's love interest. Om doesn't even looks down upon poor people like Shivaye, so I don't know, what was the point of showing Gauri poor. But it's true that Gauri's character is pretty realistic considering her background and I give her a free pass for her pati parmeshwar rant because of that only. I also don't want this Chulbul track to end so soon, because GaurI needs to know the real Om and only Chulbul can go near Om, not Gauri. But CVs are only making this track funny. Funny and romantic scenes are fine, but I also want to see some meaningful scenes between Om and Chulbul. They are not handling the track properly, which can actually be good. And as you already said that Svetlana and Tejvi are getting too much of screenspace, and Gauri is looking more like a side character now, who is only for comic relief. Due to this, people are not able to connect with Gauri's character. Cvs did the same mistake with Ishana. They didn't gave her proper screenspace or backstory and that's why her character got scrapped. Now they are again messing up Gauri's character like Ishana. I disliked the initial episodes because CVs were copy-pasting Shivika story, showing the same type of takkar. Though now Gauri has became submissive to Om(which I ofcourse don't like)but the story is still very predictable.As you said, I too hope that Om teaches Gauri, that men and women are equal but I also hope that Om doesn't turns into a complete jerk after knowing Chulbul's truth. I'm not at all interested in manhandling crap. Gauri and Rikara isn't working for me, because both need proper depth. I simply want a more original story, which is handled properly. But if everything comes down to TRPs, then there's nothing really to discuss.

Originally posted by: Luna46

I actually had a problem with Gauri's OTT bubbly nature because we already had a character like Anika. That was the main reason for many people disliking Gauri. She is a copy-paste, a more louder version of Anika. The 3 brothers were different in thoughts and personality, so we all expected that their love interests will be also different from each other. Even if Om needed a more positive girl, that doesn't means she should be a comedian. I wanted a posh and mature girl because I wanted some difference between Anika and Om's love interest. Om doesn't even looks down upon poor people like Shivaye, so I don't know, what was the point of showing Gauri poor. But it's true that Gauri's character is pretty realistic considering her background and I give her a free pass for her pati parmeshwar rant because of that only. I also don't want this Chulbul track to end so soon, because GaurI needs to know the real Om and only Chulbul can go near Om, not Gauri. But CVs are only making this track funny. Funny and romantic scenes are fine, but I also want to see some meaningful scenes between Om and Chulbul. They are not handling the track properly, which can actually be good. And as you already said that Svetlana and Tejvi are getting too much of screenspace, and Gauri is looking more like a side character now, who is only for comic relief. Due to this, people are not able to connect with Gauri's character. Cvs did the same mistake with Ishana. They didn't gave her proper screenspace or backstory and that's why her character got scrapped. Now they are again messing up Gauri's character like Ishana. I disliked the initial episodes because CVs were copy-pasting Shivika story, showing the same type of takkar. Though now Gauri has became submissive to Om(which I ofcourse don't like)but the story is still very predictable.As you said, I too hope that Om teaches Gauri, that men and women are equal but I also hope that Om doesn't turns into a complete jerk after knowing Chulbul's truth. I'm not at all interested in manhandling crap. Gauri and Rikara isn't working for me, because both need proper depth. I simply want a more original story, which is handled properly. But if everything comes down to TRPs, then there's nothing really to discuss.

You know, I was one of, if not THE, earliest people to call Gauri Anika 2.0. I remember after watching episode 01 of DBO, I made a post on the forum and I said that Gauri is just a modified version of Annika with very little changes. But after a couple of episodes, I never called her Anika again. I don't know WHY the makers chose to basically rip off their own scene and paste it on Omkara-Gauri as their first meeting but they did it. Gauri became her own character when the whole Kali Thakur angle was introduced.

And after that was done, Gauri became a separate entity than Anika. RiKara's confrontation were different than Shivika. I did watch the initial epis of IB so I know what made Shivaay be so obsessed with Anika. He found ways and reasons to interfere in her life. By contrast, Omkara doesn't want anything to do with Gauri. Situations were like this where he kept coming across her. If that didn't happen, show kaise chalta? They had to meet again and again. But in those meetings it was established that their vibes were totally different than what Shivika's were. So the whole point of Gauri just being a louder version of Anika gets subverted. Also I don't get the louder version criticism at all. Anika and Gauri both have the staple OTTness. Maybe now Anika has mellowed down a little now but I perfectly remember what she used to be in the beginning of IB and there was NOTHING below the top about her, sab kuch over over hi tha. There's no point in comparing a 200 epi old Anika to a barely 20 epi old Gauri who hasn't even had all these episodes as Gauri because she got turned into Chulbul.

Rest, I agree with. CVs aren't giving the Chulbul track the much needed attention. If they made the decision of completely removing Gauri from Omkara's life, at least allow Omkara to be somehow connected to her via Chulbul. There's SO much potential in this track but all the screen space is given to Svetlana's monologues or Tej wanting to murder his wife. I can SO understand this complaint of not being able to connect to Gauri because we BARELY get to see her! She gets such fillerish scenes for the most part...kahan se connect karenge? How will we understand her character?

"But if everything comes down to TRPs, then there's nothing really to discuss."

If you ask me honestly, there literally is NO point of this forum. Why? Because what we discuss here in pages and pages doesn't effect how a show works. Sure, a writer may get an idea about a possible scene from this place. Some creative person might get happy seeing how fans are enthusiastic about the show. But in the large scheme of things, this excited internet audience amounts to nothing. The dictating forces are an entity who function on a totally different wavelength and the makers are more concerned about them. Of course this must make one think that why am I posting these long essays then? Because there's this idea on the forum that by pointing out all that's "wrong" in the characters and the show somehow things will be changed which just psssht. So I said, heck. I don't particularly mind how they have shaped things so why not talk positively about them? Plus some things DO annoy me and by including I'll be the one who'll feel better...makers ne konsa ghanta meri baat sunni hai 😆

agree with everything u said.well said

Love this post.

I just don't feel like coming to this forum sometimes because I see so much negativity.

We are not watching a documentary, we are watching a daily soap.
Soaps have all this. watching the show is always a choice which we have.

Gauri language and attitude is definetly very good compared to the other female lead in the parent show.

I really like Omkara and I feel Gauri is the best for him.
Also, the show is not even a month old and we have to not be too much judgemental.

I never had a problem with Gauri being a villager, I in fact told many people that why do we need to have someone highly qualified for being Om's girl, but yes I do have issues with her touching feet of Om, n mind it only Om, not Shivaaaye's or Jahnavi's, Shivaaaye or Jahnavi are elders of her husband so her touching their feet is pretty normal but I don't think people touch the feet of their husbands or do aarti of them or say that the husband has a right to take out his frustration over the girl since she is her wife. This mentality is no longer there even in the villages