Has anyone seen this show called 'PunarVivaah'?

Having grandparents at home guarantees that you will be exposed to those god-awful saas bahu sagas that run on TV all day.. I get fleeting glimpses of most of them since I tend to drift in and out of the living room at various points of the day..

Has anyone seen this show called ‘PunarVivaah” on Zee?? It started out as this progressive sounding show about a widower and a divorcee who get married to each other via an arranged marriage. It started out showing the heroine as this awesome independent woman who took care of her 4 year old son and her in-laws and took on the world with a hockey stick… and now the woman has been reduced to the caricature of the downtrodden Bahu in the home of her new husband, who incidentally is still so in love with his dead wife that they live in a room that is little more than a shrine to the dead girl.

lets recap the episode I saw today shall we…

• ·         The couple, plus their three Kids (one hers, two his) return from a holiday with the man in a towering temper for some unexplained reason.
• ·         The woman walks in crying, the man frowning, and the family is stunned and stares at them walking in
• ·         the man walks off somewhere, presumably work or whatever
• ·         the ENTIRE 20 member family, including elder brother and bhabi, Father and mother in law, little sister in law and aunt in law, alongwith the girl’s mother corral the girl in the drawing room and start asking her why their boy was so unhappy “when she had promised them she would make him happy.”
• ·         NO ONE of the gathered lot tries to comfort her in any manner whatsoever..
• ·         The mother in law gets into this whole “I will never trust you again coz you made my son unhappy” rant
• ·         meanwhile the poor heroine is literally on her knees on the floor in tears, begging them all to say that they trust her. She’s asking them all to listen to her, she’s begging them to understand that she hasn’t done anything to anger him or hurt him.
• ·         and then the MIL stalks off after giving her an earful.
• ·         and NO one questioned the man because he’s simply stalked off in anger.

what I don’t get is, does no one care about the fact that this woman is also desperately unhappy???? The in-laws treat her as some servant who is only there for their son’s sake. she can’t eat or wear or go anywhere as she pleases. She is no more than a nanny for the kids because that man refuses to accord her so much as the respect due to a wife. She is living in a room filled with pictures of another woman, who is remembered by the entire family as this paragon of perfection. She has to practically beg the family to even be allowed to live in the house. Her happiness of no import?

why is the man not asked a single question? why is it that the sole responsibility for the marriage working out on her??? why does NO ONE care that the injured party in the case is HER and not that man who simply shoved bags in a car and drove off?

and most importantly.. WHY the hell is the family interference limited to badmouthing her??? if they are so interested in scrutinizing their marriage, why do they not ever see that the man is doing nothing whatsoever to make his wife even feel comfortable and wanted?

why is it that TV shows simply reinforce these disgusting stereotypes? Why is it that the man can just do anything and the woman is so dependant on his approval for happiness that she has to grovel before the entire family to be allowed the right to live in her marital home? Why is it that the wife is blamed if the man is even slightly inconvenienced but no one raises an eyebrow at the fact that this man obviously wants nothing to do with her and is simply living in the past? She has gone through a hellish divorce, but no one has ever said that the guy should be trying to put a smile on her face just as she is made responsible for his happiness.

She is supposed to find contentment simply because she is married again?? why is no one asking the In laws about why they treat her with so much indifference?? even her own mother departs the house after some platitudes about how true love conquers all!!

She is supposed to be happy simply coz she has sindur on her forehead and her son has a “father” again?? even though her in- laws treat her so poorly and the husband is indifferent? just because he claims to “respect” her and lets her stay in his house??

She seemed much happier to me in the initial episodes. When she zipped around the city on a scooty, taking care of her son, assisting her parents in their business. taking down rude shopkeepers with sharp words and goondas with a wicked right hook.