Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt Ltd review: Amruta Subhash shines in this bittersweet saas-bahu drama

4/5

Story: Following a broken marriage, a mother-of-two hopes to salvage her life by venturing into a homemade pickle business. Her tumultuous entrepreneurial adventures and her personal journey of acceptance make for a bittersweet watch.  

Review: We are a generation with a dwindling attention span that believes that double-tapping on ‘skip intro’ is but essential to cut to the chase. And thus giving a new series a shot is a hurried affair where we expect to be gripped acutely within minutes. The proceedings must instantly sustain our interest and command our attention. In such a light, Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt Ltd may seem a misfit as it doesn’t particularly pander to popular preferences and maintains a steady yet relaxed pace. But this inspiring drama by the makers of Panchayat breaks the mould and dares to drive home the idea that a show doesn’t need to tick the usual metrics to make for a compelling watch.  

Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt Ltd opens to a typical morning in an old Delhi neighbourhood. A woman rides a bicycle through the dusty serpentine bylanes, a wife struggles to extract her husband from his bed and an audacious landlady dismisses a young couple as she’s unwilling to put up with the squabbles newlyweds inevitably engage in. This distinguished milieu sets the backdrop for a compelling story of a woman who relentlessly drives against all odds hoping to find herself in the process. 

We are introduced to Suman (Amruta Subhash), who has exited her fragmented marriage with Dilip (Anup Soni), allowing him custody of their two children, Juhi (Manu Bisht) and Rishu (Nikhil Chawla). It is a temporary arrangement she admits until she can afford to support them on her own. Barely educated, Suman leans on her culinary skills to attempt a homegrown pickle business with the support and encouragement of her mother-in-law (Yamini Das). She also finds a helping hand and consultant in Shuklaji (Anandeshwar Dwivedi), a belt salesman perenially hunting for novel ways to make a quick buck. Following the usual hiccups of turning entrepreneur and various setbacks, Suman eventually bags a deal that could allow her to considerably scale up her humble operation. But what happens when that decisive order bails on her for a more lucrative competitor?    

While the show’s central theme may be inspiring and uplifting, what sets it apart is its ability to draft realistic characters, situations and a world that’s only too familiar. Set in old Delhi’s Daryaganj, we are ushered into the sights and sounds, the hustle and bustle synonymous with the modest mohalla. It’s a typical middle-class neighbourhood where vegetable vendors toss quips at customers if they’d attempt to heckle, bargain or even demand something they don’t stock. And closely constructing this world not only offers a compelling canvas to narrate this story but allows the events that follow to be seamlessly embedded in it. 

The show also shines for busting societal myths forever propagated through Indian films and TV soaps. For instance, the stepmom in this show is hardly sauteli and dotes on her stepdaughter like she was her own. In fact, she’s also sensitised about the hurt she has inflicted by splitting the family to accommodate her (#Notallstepmoms). Even the saas here, who plays a pivotal role, is unlike those hammy and repugnant TV soap figures. While she packs an acid tongue, her bond with her daughter-in-law sustains even after she divorces her son, and that’s refreshing and heartwarming. 

Pairing a red baseball cap with a sari, Subhash makes for a sprightly bahu who refuses to resign to her circumstances. The 43-year-old actress who serves as the film’s firm backbone has pulled off her career’s best. As a wife compelled to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, this one reminds us of her Marathi short film Hema where she plays a rickshaw driver’s wife who struggles to find purpose in life following her husband’s untimely demise. Here, she laces her Suman with a quiet determination and an unmistakable vulnerability that translates across the screen. In several scenes, she manages to wordlessly convey Suman’s conflicted state and her struggle to grapple with all that life lobs at her. Das, who plays the amiable Amma, nails her one-liners like a pro. With a faint filmography and forgettable turns in films such as Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi and Haseen Dillruba, this is undoubtedly the debut she would’ve hoped for. Sure, her idiosyncratic character allowed her the space and opportunity to demonstrate her acting chops, but what Das manages to pull off here will not go unnoticed and we will certainly see more of her soon. The rest of the cast including Soni, Sukhani and Dwivedi slip into their characters with complete immersion and one can hardly imagine their parts being played by anyone else. 

Abhishek Srivastava and Swarnadeep Biswas, credited for the story, screenplay and dialogue, deserve due credit for articulating one of the sparkling pieces of wisdom this show offers. When things look particularly bleak for Suman, her Amma pulls a ‘Sab theek ho jayega’. A pragmatic woman aware that these conciliatory words don’t amount to much, Suman questions the relevance of the very statement. To this, her Amma sagely agrees that while the words may not trigger a turn in events, they’re essential to momentarily delude us into believing that all that’s wrong in our life is actually somewhat right.

For a show that revolves around pickles, it was necessary to cinematically capture the process of seasoning and curing the fruits and vegetables to achieve the desired flavour. Cinematographer Arjun Kukreti takes particular relish in a few scenes where he trains his lens and pulls off those food channel-style slowmo shots of spices being drizzled on chopped raw mangoes before the delicious preserve is deposited into a pickle jar.    

Verdict: Pickles deliver as an umami-packed spicy punch that can transform a dull meal into a tolerable if not enjoyable one. An escapist yet necessary drug that allows one to not only survive an insipid gobi paratha but also relish it. And we all need some aachar or another to elevate us from our dreary lives. Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt Ltd is just that essential tadka to spice up your day.