Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt. Ltd is the real ‘vocal for local’. Without being noisy, the show hums its way slowly into your heart and leaves you with an aftertaste you get with homemade achaar. Airing on ZEE5, has the characteristic TVF stamp on it — full-bodied drama that’s simply delightful. The pace may be a deterrent, especially as most people prefer fast-moving plots in OTT shows.
The six-episode series is an exploration of what it means to be a woman entrepreneur if you are uneducated and have no financial support or professional experience.
The show has been created by director Apoorv Singh Karki and TVF co-founder Arunabh Kumar. The story is credited to Kumar, Abhishek Srivastava, and Akansh Gaur. The screenplay is by Karki and Swarnadeep Biswas. Such a team explains where the story lacks — so many men try to give nuance to a woman’s story. It does not work always.
Sridevi’s character in English Vinglish (2012) was the first to give voice to what it means to be a stay-at-home mother and run a business that would always be considered ‘supplementary’ to her husband’s job. Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt. Ltd just takes it forward in a lower middle-class family.
The performances
Dilip (Anup Soni) has left Suman (Amruta Subhash) for the widowed Manisha (Anjana Sukhani) and taken custody of her children, Juhi and Rishu. Manisha also has a son, Vivaan, from her previous marriage. Dilip lives with his new brood and mother in Daryaganj, Delhi. Suman wants her children back but has no income. Saas Bahu Pvt. Ltd is her journey of becoming financially independent by selling homemade achaar.
Subhash, last seen in Bombay Begums (2021) will make you feel a range of emotions with her brilliant performance. Suman is a housewife who hopes her talent of making pickles will win back her children from Dilip. She is equal parts brash, outspoken, and timid. She is representative of all the housewives whose savings went worthless in demonetisation, who had no bank accounts and are not very educated. But she wants to succeed — to get her children back home.
Yamini Das as the mother-in-law who loves her abandoned bahu Suman is endearing. The relationship between the two is woven beautifully as the saas teaches the bahu to deliver the sales pitch and comes up with ‘do numbari’ strategies to sell pickles in the neighbourhood.
You can’t even hate Manisha. She is not the proverbial stepmother and instead, tries to balance the frayed ties between her husband’s children and Suman and help a teenage Juhi negotiate life challenges. In fact — except for Dilip who also isn’t exactly a hardcore villain— the characters are realistic, and that makes the show work.
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Local entrepreneurship
What stands out is how Suman’s business is driven by the help and solidarity of the domestic workers in the area who are also her sales representatives. Even Shukla (Anandeshwar Dwidevi), a hawker, who helps out in her venture, deserves special mention for his performance.
However, the show lacks substance in some key areas. The subplots of children affected by divorce, broken marriage and its ramifications are not explored in-depth, especially through Manisha’s eyes. Those feel like missed opportunities. Maybe, the second season, if it comes, will take a look at both.
The show does occasionally fall off its tracks, but it has its moments — Suman selling pickles in night buses, or when the pickle company where Dilip is a sales head creates a ‘Buy 1, get 1’ offer, causing a crisis in Suman’s business. But just like you need to leave a bit of achaar on your plate to savour later, the show too must be watched at an unhurried pace.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)