Rupal Patel defends Saath Nibhaana Saathiya: ‘It is wrong to say that it is completely backward’

Rupal Patel opened up about allegations that Saath Nibhaana Saathiya was regressive in nature. She said that all content was a reflection of society and there needed to be a graph to show change.

Rupal Patel has addressed allegations of her popular show, Saath Nibhaana Saathiya, being regressive. The actor, who played Kokilaben, the matriarch of the Modi family, on the show, said that it would be wrong to call it ‘completely backward’.

Rupal Patel played Kokilaben in Saath Nibhaana Saathiya.

Saath Nibhaana Saathiya told the story of cousins Gopi and Rashi, who marry Ahem and Jigar, two sons of the Modi family of Rajkot. The show highlighted the morals and values of a typical Gujarati joint family.

In an interview with Pinkvilla, Rupal said that any content on television is a ‘reflection of the society’. “If you have to show the progress in any story, you will first have to show what happened previously, only then the change will be apparent. That graph needs to be there. Hence, we have to show characters like Gopi who was an illiterate but also very obedient. She was very soft spoken, but just because she was not literate, we can’t show her in poor light, right?,” she said.

Rupal said that Gopi’s graph was shown in correlation with Kokilaben’s character. “We showed how under the guidance of Kokilaben, who was a righteous character, Gopi progresses. A bahu who washed off a laptop was shown to finally educate herself and her progress as a character was shown. But of course, all of this takes time. So, it is wrong to say that it is completely backward or regressive, one needs to be patient, that’s about it,” she said.

Saath Nibhaana Saathiya is all set to return with a second season, which will have Rupal and Devoleena Bhattacharjee reprising their roles as Kokilaben and Gopi bahu, respectively. The show regained popularity recently, after a rap version of the ‘Rasode Mein Kaun Tha?’ scene went viral online.

Two new cast members - Harsh Nagar and Sneha Jain - will play the lead roles of Anant and Gehna. A promo video for the second season was released, which featured Devoleena mentioning Gehna, although Sneha was not introduced in the short teaser.

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