A year back, Ekta Kapoor, who has been lately associated with bringing bold content onto digital media, came up with a new show ‘Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain’, which revolved around the complexities of marriage and extra-marital affair on her video-on-demand platform, ALTBalaji. Although the premise made it look as if the content was more suited to the TV platform where Ekta Kapoor’s shows considerable stronghold, the show surprised critics and web-series pundits alike by going onto become one of the most widely watched web-shows. Starring Mona Singh and Gurdeep Kohli along with Ronit Roy, the series puts these three protagonists through the test of time, love, loyalty, society, and marriage.
While it may seem like an attempt to put old wine in a new bottle, this show is far from being a clichéd and typical daily soap that involves manipulative and damsel-in-distress characters. Written by ‘Badhai Ho’ fame, Neena Gupta, ‘Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain’ traces the journey of love outside of marriage without glorifying the act of adultery and making the ‘other women’ a villainous home breaker. Neena Gupta had very well ensured with her storyline to keep both the female leads strong and willed-minded.
The first season of the show released back in March 2018 and garnered huge praises from viewers and critics alike. The second season was released recently on 12th February and had already crossed a whopping 25 million is just 10 days. The lead actor of the show shared this news on his Instagram page with his followers.
Reason behind the show’s popularity
The first season of the show became immensely popular online among viewers of every age group and now the second season has racked in three times the views of the first season.
The first season of the show depicted the dilemma of a married man, Rohit Mehra, played by Ronit Roy when he is caught between choosing his family or his love. Rohit, while being married to Poonam, played by Gurdeep Kohli, falls for a much younger and self-made interior designer, Ananya Sharma, played by Mona Singh. The first run of the show led viewers through ups-and-downs of the life of these three characters and their development throughout the series owing to the way their lives are entwined with one another. While viewers might expect a usual turn of events where Rohit goes back to his wife after realizing his mistake, the show, however, does not follow the norm. Instead, it breaks the stereotype and depicts all the three characters sailing through time and evolving in their life despite the bad experiences they had to endure.
Poonam comes out as a stronger and self-reliant woman after her marriage breaks down and shows that divorce is not the end of the world. Her positive development on the show is one of the most admired characteristics. Rohit, on the other hand, is a typically flawed Indian man, who spent most of his life sacrificing the things he loves for his family, but later realizes another side of him exists when he meets Ananya. The ‘other woman’, Ananya is the modern, self-made, and independent woman who stays in a relationship with a married man on her own terms. The character of Ananya comes off as a hard-working yet lonely woman who still does not have his husband’s full attention.
Character development is seen in with the continuation of the second season, however, Rohit learns that making a marriage work is hard, and even harder when the wife is no longer bound to the shackles of family and responsibilities. The new season also shows the development of jealousy in Rohit when he meets Ananya’s boss in the first episode. The series further develops and shows that Ananya leaves his husband to take up a new project in Qatar and find her self-worth away from Rohit.
Both the season has put forth a number of questions in front of viewers regarding love and marriage. The ongoing series beautifully shows how two women who are arch-nemesis can still respect each other for who they are. Show makers have also kept the excitement of viewers surrounding new episodes by releasing them every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The show wins the heart of viewers as it is real and well-written where all the characters are on a path to identify the desires of their heart. And it would be unfair to not mention that so far ‘Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain’ stands out from other series dealing with the concept of the extra-marital affair.
Kehne Ko Humsafar Hain Season 2 Trailer