A kinship, reframed

Manjri Varde, 67, is an artist, but some of her favourite works can’t be framed. They’re the videos she puts out with her daughter-in-law on Instagram (@manjrivarde), offering light but honest takes on the power struggles, disagreements and eventually the love of their relationship.

The two women decided to use the platform, they say, to counter the exhaustingly clichéd and only partially accurate stereotypes perpetuated in popular culture: that two women who love the same man will compete, can’t get along, and are destined to make life hard for all those around them.

Of course there is truth to this, sadly, in MIL-DIL relationships around the world, more so in patriarchal societies where the man’s loyalty and love can be the difference between belonging and being relegated to the fringes, Varde says.

But does portrayal of this bond have to be this dark in the 21st century, in cities where so much around these relationships has changed? They decided to recast the narrative, with honesty.

Varde, always in bright colours, flowers in her hair, and her daughter-in-law, actor Sameera Reddy, 42, sometimes discuss why the latter wears so much black; what a good outfit might be for a particular occasion; where is the right place to keep an item in the home (they rarely agree on this one).

They also dance together, take online challenges, cook traditional recipes. “Sameera has a great sense of comic timing. She’s the one who decides on the content. We have a great chemistry,” Varde says.

The duo began their saas-bahu videos in March 2020, when Reddy’s husband Akshai refused to do a Flip the Switch video with his mom and she offered to do it instead.

Since then, the account’s follower count has climbed from 25,000 to 112,000. Varde gets a lot of messages from young women hoping they will find a mother-in-law like her. She tells them maybe they can be that mother-in-law to someone in their future too.

“In India, as most children live with their parents even after they marry, there’s usually a sense of insecurity on both sides, financial and emotional. I grew up very independent. Sameera too is like me. So, we have none of these insecurities. That is what allows us to be light-hearted and fun in our videos.”

Off-screen, they have their disagreements, they say.

“As in any household, it’s the smaller things. Sometimes her being messy, my giving too many instructions, her being very protective about me during the pandemic and me wanting to be more carefree,” Varde says. It helps, they say, to have some cardinal rules: be polite at all times; understand the motive. “And we never ever make Akshai choose between us,” Varde says.

Varde thinks viewers love the content because they see that it is authentic.

“I get to be myself, a quirky 67-year-old artist, a decent cook, mother, doting grandmother, music lover, a bit of a dancer, full of drama,” she says.

“The videos happened by chance but the relationship we portray is the relationship we have in real life,” Reddy says. “People relate to our love. We are so proud of being able to change the conversation around the mother-in-law and daughterin-law relationship that has been portrayed negatively for so many years.”

Varde and Reddy’s videos aim to recast the mother-in-lawdaughter-in-law narrative, with honesty. They post videos of themselves dancing together, disagreeing on things, playing and cooking with the children, Hans and Nyra.