Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain Makes You Question The Sanctity Of Marriage

Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain left me questioning the sanctity of marriage, doubt relationships and over-analyse the need to be in love and remain in it too!

The first look at Mehra house gives you the impression that how impeccably beautiful life can be. However the deeper you dig, you find yourself opening up a Pandora’s box!

Rohit and Poonam Mehra are married for over two decades and are visibly the most idealistic couple in town. Poonam is the wife any Indian man would want for his home. A mother of his two lovely daughters, she is the dutiful daughter-in-law and wife. She personifies the saying, ‘Home is the reflection of the homemaker.’

Ananya is everything Poonam isn’t. She is feisty, ambitious and highly assertive. On the other hand, Poonam lives for her family. It isn’t that she is uneducated or the kind of lady who wouldn’t fit into the category of the ‘woman of today.’ She simply, chooses not to, lest her home get affected by it. Yet it does and how!

When Rohit is caught red-handed with Ananya, he confesses his love her and the desperation to live with her, thus separating from Poonam. The latter is taken aback when she learns this. For her, Rohit’s actions are unbelievable as they are totally against the sanctity of marriage. 

Despite all the hullabaloo and emotional outbursts at home, Rohit goes ahead and divorces Poonam to marry Ananya. This leaves the family distraught and completely wrecked. Poonam suffers an emotional breakdown while her daughters fail to reconcile to the fact that their father could desert them and start afresh. 

Ekta Kapoor has tackled two stereotypes like a boss

With time, Poonam, however, accepts the separation with dignity and grace. Struggling with her pre-menopausal issues, she, fortunately, finds a great companion in Abhi, who despite a considerable age gap expresses his desire to marry her.

Never miss real stories from India's women.

Register Now

It takes a long time for Abhi to woo Poonam who finds the relationship to be unconventional. Her hesitation stems from the age old dogmatic belief that in a wedlock a man must be elder to the woman. 

One must applaud Ekta Kapoor for breaking two stereotypes here. First, divorce which is supposedly a social stigma for both who undergoes it and the ones who witness it. Here, however, is shown to be an acceptable norm. And secondly, that love need not follow conventions, just the heart. 

Despite it all, he goes back to his wayward ways

Having fought for all this Rohit and Ananya never find absolute happiness or solace. Misunderstandings, fights, arguments rule their home. Things go out of hand and an inebriated Rohit finds himself in Poonam’s bed.

They plan to keep this as a hush-hush affair. However Ananya overhears Poonam’s confession to her sister, that she and her ex husband, unknowingly had a moment. This of course leaves Ananya completely shattered and scarred for life. And she rightly decides to leave Rohit. She leaves for Dubai and soon discovers that she is pregnant with Rohit’s child. 

In spite of Rohit’s repeated attempts to woo Ananya back, she does not give in. Soon after this, Rohit resorts to a wayward life dominated by alcohol and women.

He goes from one woman to another without any inhibitions, never realising that most of these women are almost the same age as his elder daughter. In order to exhibit his vengeance, he brings these women home and displays his carnal desires in front of everyone. This definitely becomes the biggest cringe factor in the show. 

It does have too many unnecessary twists and turns

Just as most Ekta Kapoor shows, Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain is also liberally laced with amorality and unjustified relationships. These are time and again superimposed on its viewers. The twists and turns seem to be quite unnecessary and like mere attempt to bring in controversies. And the verbal clashes between the characters seem to erupt from their unresolved emotions and feelings for each other! 

All through three seasons of this web series we witness characters either falling in and out of love or walking in and out of relationships. It portrays all possible complexities that plague a marriage and how an individual’s wrong decision can take the entire family downhill! 

Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain proves how a successful marriage is an uphill task and that one must persevere no matter what. We all hear about mid life crisis. But what happens when we prioritise that over our relationships, family and children? Is that right? Or the reason we decided to commit ourselves to another person? Is love that short-lived? The audience would go through these and many other questions.

But the bonding between the two women is great!

Despite all this what saves Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain is the bonding between Poonam and Ananya. Their bond arises from the same pain point-they both have been victimised by their husband’s infidelity.

Though Rohit becomes a drunkard and womaniser, the women take it upon themselves to stand up for their family and children who are leading a broken life. They come in as the fulcrum between each of the family members and keep the family from falling apart.

The camaraderie between these two women becomes an example of one woman standing up for the other. They are bound by a relationship one would hate to be in, but they still make it a point to straighten each other’s crowns without the world knowing about it. Their relationship also helps mend other relationships around them.

Poonam and Ananya’s connection with Rohit’s mother is beyond that of a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. This helps them to smoothen their association with Poonam’s daughters, Bani and Nikki. Being disillusioned by their father’s behavior, they have lost all hopes from life. That is when Poonam and Ananya’s bond helps them seek support and hope.

But it leaves you with a lot of questions to ponder upon

However, as the show ends up straightening all the creases in the life of its characters, it leaves the audience baffled with the end. Rohit and Ananya divorce each other but revert to their old roles as lovers who are out there to fulfil their clandestine desires.

They go back to their old life of keeping their relationship based on love that’s more physical and sans expectations. This yet again challenges the notion of marriage leaving us to ponder if we really need a social acceptance to all our relationships. 

Ekta Kapoor’s Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain left me questioning the sanctity of marriage, and doubt relationships. It surely made me over-analyse the need to be in love and remain in it too!

Picture credits: Still from the series Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain

Comments