Is it a coincidence or are channels and content providers really taking a hard look at stories about women and their emancipation. Star Plus’ Tamanna deals with a woman cricketer, who comes from a middle class family in small town Gujarat. Where other than school and the kitchen, the girls have no other activity. In fact, at a very early age they master the art of tempering the perfect tadka and set the best thali in the mullah. If they have an interest in cricket, it’s confined to watching the matches on television.
But Dhara’s passion for cricket has her want to play the game and is heading for a professional status. Dhara’s grandmother is of the old stock who firmly believes that a girl’s place is in the kitchen. Dhara’s father has his mother, wife and daughter arrive at a compromise between her kitchen duties, study and cricket. Tamanna takes the face of women’s cricket in its nascent stages out of the shadows of gully cricket onto the tempered pitch. Dhara is poised to play for the under-something team. The serial started with a young woman balancing between meeting a prospective groom and playing the definitive match for a berth in the Indian XI and meeting the selector. Currently, Dhara’s back story is being unspooled.

Life OK has given a new spin on the saas-bahu drama with Bahu Hamari Rajni_Kant. This bahu is simply perfect, he is a good wife, a great cook, a perfectionist; what more can we expect? She is a robot! Rajni could be a trend setter for future bahus on Indian television, it revolves around a loving, but dysfunctional family, with cultural differences.

Shaan Kant (played by Karan V Grover) is a genius, whose life revolves around robotics. Hence, Shaan makes a female humanoid. His creation Rajni (Randomly Accessible Job Network Interface) is uncontrollable once she is activated. A welcome relief from the mundane saas-bahu dramas, the show is from a man's point of view, and also brings into play a funny clash between the family’s Punjabi and Bengali culture.

In this dysfunctional family, women are so emancipated that they don’t engage in any housework, they can’t even make a cup of tea! A problem in most modern day households with women working. It is representational of today’s independent Indian women, who are multi-taskers and a lot is expected from them. Almost like the real life Rajniknath.

If Rajni endears herself to the viewers, will Bahu Hamari Rajni-Kant become a precursor of a new genre of shows where humanoid saas-bahu play the field hard and fast?

Life Ok has taken another progressive step using humanoids as the star attraction and lend sci-fi a rom-com feel.