The shows produced by The Viral Factory (TVF) have taken viewers into their fictional version of the real India, and made the joys and troubles of common folk watchable, entertaining even.
Their latest Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt. Ltd. (Zee5) goes into the mohallas of Daryaganj in old Delhi, where the divorced Suman (Amruta Subhash) tries to set up her pickle business, having little education and no marketing experience.
It is a modern-day fairy-tale, dedicated to women who overcome all odds to achieve professional success, so Suman’s struggle is not really difficult or soul-destroying. From her husband Dilip’s (Anup Soni) ancestral mansion, she moves to a pokey tenement, with just one visible neighbour, Shukla (Anandeshwar Dwivedi), who first cons, then helps her. Dilip left Suman and took custody of their two children, to marry divorcee Manisha (Anjana Sukhani), who has a child of her own. His mother (Yamini Das) is unhappy with the situation, and continues to be in touch with Suman.
How Suman manages rent and material for her pickles is not clear, but she needs to make a living so that she can take her kids back from Dilip. Her first crisis hits when she is unable to rustle up the money her daughter Juhi (Manu Bisht) needs for the IIT entrance exam; it is also the first time the sullen Juhi connects with her stepmother, who is a caring woman. Manisha may not have felt any guilt in breaking up Suman’s home, but she showers love on her stepchildren, even though they resent her. The son Rishu (Nikhil Chawla) is so shattered, he takes to sniffing drugs with the alleyway vagabonds.
On seeing Suman’s fruitless toil, her sprightly mother-in-law jumps in to help, and the “never fear when Shukla is near” neighbour becomes her support system. Suman’s great idea comes from a conversation with a maid, who is offered an incentive to slip the new pickle bottle into the employer’s grocery bag. Soon other maids join in to make some money on the side and Suman is well on the way to success, from selling plastic-wrapped pickles in buses to supplying a properly labelled bottle of Wonder Achaar to shops in the locality. (There is some eww discomfort watching people dip their fingers into the bottle to sample the pickle.)
The series directed by Apporv Singh Karki, from a story by Arunabh Kumar, Abhishek Shrivastav and Akansh Gaur and screenplay by Karki and Swarnadeep Biswas, is full of good-hearted people; the meanest ones she comes across are cops, who confiscate her bag of pickles and take her money.
From the time Suman cycles around Daryaganj with her pickles and looks longingly at her family from afar, the viewer knows she will succeed, so there’s no knot-in-the-stomach moments over her initial failures. What is so charming about the series is the gentle humour and well-written lines. The scenes between the mother-in-law (who is not even given a name!) and Suman are as funny as they are solicitous with Manisha. Even Suman bears no grudge towards Manisha, her rancor is reserved for Dilip, who actually gets away easy for being such a chauvinist, because the women are so understanding.
If there are romantic sparks between Suman and Shukla, they are strictly platonic. The maids’ network is delightful and could have done with more scenes. Unlike, say Chocolat, also about a woman endearing herself to the neighbourhood with food, Saas Bahu could have done with some magic. In keeping with the times, however, the magic wand is waved by a TV reporter from Daryaganj TV (a locality with its own TV channel is a revelation!).
Suman’s illiteracy and ignorance makes the series a bit out-of-date; it glosses over her loveless marriage before the divorce, and adds needless contrivances like the husband working with the only pickle company in Daryaganj, the area existing like an island cut-off from the rest of Delhi. The six-part show is watchable, because Amruta Subhash makes Suman so likeable and believable amidst a cast of well-chosen actors.
Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt Ltd.
Director: Apoorv Singh Karki
Cast: Amruta Subhash, Yamini Das, Anup Soni, Anjana Sukhani and others
On Zee5
