We don’t mean they haven’t undergone any change, there are trivial alterations. For example, now, instead of openly making the lead woman’s life horrible, TV bahus are blessed with the illusion of a choice and career before they’re called on to prescribe to tradishons and fulfil their homely duties like getting insulted by the husband, giving him babies, and maintaining a joint family where literally everybody is conniving against her.

Simply put, here’s the ultimate recipe for every Indian daily soap ever –

1. Take an exceedingly gullible dumb woman whose life is about to change (for worse)

2. Add a nani or dadi or a random old lady who hates our lead woman but loves her estranged sister 

3. Heat the drama with an evil saas who’s seeking an unpaid lifetime employee for her good-for-nothing introverted ultra-pro-max son & get him married to the woman

4. Add all the unnecessary spices a.k.a. the members of the groom’s sanskaari joint family. They have no real contribution to the taste. They are mere spectators of the drama that’s gonna unfold in the bahu’s life. They’re jeera

5. Sprinkle crappy VFX because bahu’s gonna fall and/or land in life-threatening situations more often than you’d expect

6. Stir the mixture with different renditions of the same background score to communicate various levels of seriousness of the situation

7. Remember, there has to be one bahu supporter in the big fat family cos her life can’t be all too sour

8. Introduce random supernatural events with no connection to the serial’s original story whatsoever just because we have to run the show for a century

9. And finally, the flavour comes into Bahu’s life after years of humiliation when her pati finally acknowledges her existence, and they live happily ever after

Damn! Indian TV isn’t really fond of women’s lives. But hey, they may be exaggerated but their stories are not too far away from real life. If you know, you know! As you hold on to this thought, here are Signs You’ve Become Your Office’s Gopi Bahu.