Parvarish — Kuch Khatti, Kuch Meethi is just the kind of soap that every middle class Indian family would identify with. Two middle class families with pre-teen and teenage kids are worried about the external influences. The mothers played by Shweta Tiwari (Sweety) and Rupali Ganguly (Pinky), try to maintain a balance between old fashioned values and new age permissiveness. Both play the role of helicopter mums who are not just involved with their children's lives but also decide their careers. Shweta is referred to as a dangerous mama on her son's cellphone. She doesn't believe in giving her kids too much freedom unlike her didi Pinky who is a chilled-out mum. Sweety constantly checks on her kids SMSes and suspiciously reacts to one such message received by her teen daughter. In a typically melodramatic manner, she drags the teenager to a temple for a confession in Bhagwan's house. The cute teen blurts out that her cousin Raavi, (Pinky's daughter) is being chased by her classmate. Shweta promptly calls her sister over to share the news. A hysterical Rupali calls her husband Jeet (Vishal Singh), who patiently answers her call in between business meets. Vishal asks her not to over-react but a hysterical Rupali flips out eventually. She tries to stay cool and cajole her daughter into confiding but when Raavi eventually does, all hell breaks loose. Raavi has played Kajol's older daughter in We are family, and is shocked by the unexpected harsh reaction. This is perhaps a common scene in some Indian homes, where the parents often blow their top over such issues instead of communicating.
Shweta, who is married to Vivek Mushran, has her own little challenges to deal with. Her cherubic little son wants to become an auto-rickshaw driver when he grows up, and is representative of five-year-olds who have the freedom to dream small as opposed to dreaming big. This scene though is very well handled with the mother gently encouraging the child to study further. She tells him that if he wants to own and auto and ride it too, he must know how to repair and build one in case it breaks down. She convinces the child to become an engineer first before he rides his dream auto. Wonderful message for parents — don't destroy your children's dreams, build on them instead.
The romantic angle between Shwetha and her hubby who runs a fairly successful business is a bit contrived and the conversations a little too syrupy. An upper-middle class woman juggling three kids and a home is hardly going to cootchie-coo with her husband several times a day, no matter how successful the marriage. Also, both the men, Vivek and Vishal appear a tad too young for their onscreen wives.
In episode two, the family gets hysterical again as they assume that an angry Raavi has run away with the boy. So a search is on for her. Enter the grandpa played by the doyen of television, Laloo of Hum Log, Rajesh plays this aggressive grandpa who takes Raavi to the boys house, slaps the boy's father and they both land up at the police station where the boy is made to tie a rakhi on the girl's wrist. Yet another typical scenario, where parents believe that tying a rakhi will resolve the attraction levels.
Like we said this a typical masala middle class soap which has all the right ingredients to make it a success.
