Concept:
Saasu-maa mein'maa' bhi hain (tentative title)
A love story between mother-in-law and daughters-in-law.
Basic concept note.
Can a girl of today YEARN for a sasuraal which has a mother-in-law? Can a control addict mother-in-law agree to give near total freedom to a daughter-in-law whom she isn't exactly fond of? Can THREE diverse schools of thought co-exist in a household that boasts of an already diverse atmosphere?
Welcome to the residence of sanyuktagauri Mehta majhumdaar. She is a woman of 52 going on 42 who is an eclectic mix of pure bred tradition and an emancipated mind. While freedom for everyone, especially women, is her mantra, she is steadfast in her opinion that the freedom should never ever threaten the sanskar the shanti and the sanskruti of her household. At the same time she is vocal about the fact that a household can have only ONE leader. In other words HER. unless overthrown democratically. Sanyukta has raised 3 sons and a daughter quite well considering the fact that she had to look after the entire household, an ailing brother in law and several other family problems. The only factor that wasn't ever a problem is that they are an OLD MONEY family and so finances have never been an issue...... NOT YET. But the 2 things that she has regrets about are
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her eldest sons wife susheela
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Her second son aniket.
Susheela isn't exactly what sanyukta had expected from her eldest bahooranee. But cupid struck and binoy, her eldest son married susheela much against sanyuktas wishes. Sanyukta wanted an educated well bred traditional yet emancipated girl and susheela was the near perfect opposite... While not exactly uneducated, she came from a family of 7 sisters and finally a brother where her father is a not so renowned Gujarati mythological film maker and susheela is the eternal SATI DEVI actress who has played a good woman all her life in all of her father's mythologies. Susheela is a compulsory do gooder who has a compulsive obsessive disorder about cooking cleaning nurturing and generally trying to please everyone. While she manages the first three things with elan, pleasing everyone is not exactly what she succeeds in; especially sanyukta. The obvious inherent problem is that sanyukta is a blue blooded NAAGAR GUJARATI from Ahmedabad who has a different kind of discipline and lifestyle. And susheela comes from a gregarious larger than life lifestyle from KATHIAWAAR. So, while susheela tries everything in the book to adhere to the sasumaas lifestyle, her inherent CHALTA HAI attitude and penny wise pound foolish naivety often leads to her falling in the bad books of sanyukta.
While susheela effortlessly manages to irk sanyukta, sanyukta patiently continues to try and groom susheela. The one thing sanyukta is absolutely clear about is that A MOTHER IN LAW SHOULD SHOWER ALL HER LOVE ON HER DAUGHTER IN LAW BUT ALWAYS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A MOTHER IN LAW. SHE MUST NEVER ATTEMPT TO BECOME A MOTHER! That, in her opinion would tend to dissolve the laxmanrekha of mutual respect between the saas and the bahoo.
She tries love, authority and even emotional blackmail to CONVERT susheela into a majhumdar bahoo but susheelas upbringing makes it difficult for her to let go of her being a true desi kathiawari belle. And catastrophe strikes when susheela takes up the issue of getting her favorite simpleton of a brother in law, aniket married.
Aniket is a classic simpleton. Absolutely non dynamic, just about a below average 12thpass, unemployed zero productive family member; aniket can be termed as good for nothing but for the fact that he sings very well. Susheela calls aniket her son from her past life and dotes on him. And when she brings up the topic of getting aniket married she raises a storm. Sanyukta is of the firm opinion that since aniket wasn't a productive responsible man he wasn't fit for marriage. But the eternally hopeful susheela is convinced that with the entire family's support aniket could manage to lead a more responsible life. Eventually sanyukta relents when aniket himself voices his desire to have a companion, of course influenced by his dear bhabhi. But just as sanyukta sets off on finding the girl of her choice for aniket... history repeats itself. Aniket, thanks to susheelas effortless faux pas, manages to fall in love with TEJAL. Tejal is a spit fire tomboy girl from Surat who has never seen a mother and has always been her fathers SON and embarrassment owing to her righteous but over sensitive behavior. which has resulted in her beating up almost every tom dick and Harish in Surat city. Cupid plays a mischievous trick and tejal falls for the obedient simpleton singer, aniket. And lo and behold! In the already mixed up clash of cultures and schools of thought, now enters diversity. While susheela is a compulsive do gooder, tejal is a spitfire rebel albeit with a dangerously soft heart. Sanyukta blames susheela squarely for having compounded the family's woes and now faces another gargantuan problem. To get aniket to become responsible and to make tejal bahooworthy.
But the task sanyukta faces is a mammoth one because TEJAL firmly believes that saasumaa mein bhi 'maa' hai and the motherless woman has vowed that one day she will convert sanyukta from a mother-in-law to a mother and make her accept tejals own way of living. And sanyukta has vowed that she will always maintain the dignified laxmanrekha between being a mother and a mother-in-law (which is very very essential) and she has also vowed to groom tejal. And so begins tejals taming of the shrew and sanyuktas Pygmalion where an emotionally powerful yet pleasantly fun filled battle of the fairer sex begins. Susheela the eternal do gooder becomes the referee who cannot take sides and between 3 women IN THE LIFE OF ONE MAN, a tender, heart warming and often heart breaking story unfolds. We therefore tag this as a LOVE STORY BETWEEN MOTHER-IN-LAW AND DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW.
Cast :
Chitra Vyas as Baa
Rajiv Mehta As Nikhilesh Majumdar
Sucheeta Trivedi as Sasyukta Majumdar
Jimit Trivedi as Binoy Majumdar
Pariva Pranati as Sushila Binoy Majumdar
Vishal Gandhi as Aniket Majumdar
Aditya Kapadia as Shashwat Majumdar
Tanvi Thakkar as Forum Majumdar
Pooja Benerjee as Tejal