| Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Created by | Ekta Kapoor |
| Written by |
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| Directed by |
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| Creative director | Siddhartha Vankar |
| Starring | Smriti Irani Amar Upadhyay |
| Opening theme | Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi by Priya Bhattacharya |
| Country of origin | India |
| Original language | Hindi |
| No. of episodes | 166 as on 10th January 2026 |
| Production | |
| Producers | Ekta Kapoor Shobha Kapoor |
| Editors |
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| Production company | Balaji Telefilms |
| Original release | |
| Network | Star Plus |
| Release | 29 July 2025 – present |
| Related | |
| Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi | |
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 (transl.Because Even a Mother-in-Law Was a Daughter-in-Law Once 2) is an Indian Hindi-language television series premiered on 29th July 2025 on StarPlus and streams digitally on JioHotstar. [1] [2] It is a sequel and reboot of the Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi . [3] Smriti Irani and Amar Upadhyay returned to portray the leads, Tulsi and Mihir Virani. [4] Rohit Suchanti, Tanisha Mehta, Shagun Sharma and Aman Gandhi portray second-generation characters. [5]
Twenty-five years later, Tulsi remembers Amba and Savita with fondness as Mihir gifts her a luxury car on their 38th anniversary. Mihir and Tulsi's children Gautam, Shobha and Karan have all shifted abroad. Karan, Nandini and Shobha visit for the anniversary party. Tulsi had adopted and raised her late cousin Kesar and her husband Anupam's children—Angad, Paridhi, and Hrithik. Mihir's aunt Daksha still loves gossiping about films. Mihir's aunt, Gayatri, berates Tulsi and questions her son Hemant's place in the family. Later, Mihir and Tulsi celebrate their anniversary, where Mihir openly expresses his immense love for her.
Trouble begins when Paridhi confesses about her love-interest Ranvijay, who lives in a chawl and Mihir initially disapproves of him. While Angad is also arrested on charges of hit and run. Here enters Vrinda Gokhale, a girl from humble background who witnessed the actual accused Viren Mehta, a man who also beats his wife Sandhya Parekh. Vrinda helps Angad to prove his innocence by revealing about her brother Nitin being pressured to falsely accuse Angad which helps her land a job in wing managed by Angad. Soon Noina Sarabhai, an NRI businesswoman and Mihir's college friend enters and through her Paridhi marries Ajay Parekh, brother of Sandhya, when Ranvijay ditches her after the shares of Mihir's company dropped and the Parekh family has Viren arrested for troubling Angad and assaulting Sandhya.
Unbeknownst to everyone, Noina always loved Mihir one-sided which Paridhi learns of and plots to separate her parents by fueling to Noina's hidden feelings. Meanwhile Ranvijay reconnects with Paridhi and to be with him she falsely accuses Ajay and his family in domestic violence case leading to their arrests. But Tulsi learns of it and testifies in their support just like she killed her son Ansh to protect Nandini. Noina's niece Mitali develops a crush on Angad and fixes her alliance with him while Vrinda's marriage is fixed to Ranvijay's abusive friend Suhas. Angad and Vrinda's friendship blossoms into love while Suhas and Mitali plot against them. Vrinda finally breaks the alliance when Suhas tries to molest her and Angad does so when he discovers Mitali's plot about fooling her friends by pretending that she is possessed to escape her gambling loan. However, Mitali tries to blackmail him into marriage, leading him and Vrinda to elope and be banished from Shantiniketan.
Noina becomes obsessed and plots against Mihir and in one such plot, she feigns suicide after Angad's marriage and a drunk Mihir saves her and spends night with her. While the family maid Manjuri Sinha aka Munni falls for Hrithik and starts chatting with him as "Munmun". After the truth reveal, Tulsi sends her to a hostel sponsoring her further education. A guilt-ridden Mihir transfers his property to Tulsi's name while his brother Kiran repeatedly encourages him for a divorce. Tulsi and Mihir's attempt to stop Paridhi and Ranvijay's marriage fails when Tulsi learns about Noina and Mihir and leaves home leaving behind the whole property and a letter ensuring the family about her safety and shifts to ancestral home of Amba in Anjar, which she transferred on her name before dying and vows to start off her life again from there.
Six years later, Tulsi has established her handloom textile start-up Bandhej Co-operative Business in Amba's ancestral home with several poor girls and leads it with Vaishnavi, a girl working there as designer while Noina has taken control of Shanti Niketan and made life of Gayatri, Daksha, family cook and other members of family miserable which made Gayatri repent. Mihir yearns for Tulsi but does not allow Noina to cross her boundaries outside professional meetings and taunts her for her plotting against Tulsi and family. Paridhi repents her earlier behaviour with Tulsi as Ranvijay actually beats her and is careless for their daughter Garima too while Ritik is also in a loveless marriage with Mitali and has a daughter, Timsi, whom she ignores. While quarrels have become a routine in Shantiniketan. Angad and Vrinda happily inhabit a chawl with their twins, Akshay and Madhavi. Meanwhile Manjuri (Munni) has now the become District Collector of Mumbai. Mihir along with Noina, Ritik, Mitali and Parth visit to Anjar for handicraft designs for their business where Noina spots Tulsi but prevents Mihir from meeting her.
Tulsi and her team is invited to Mumbai for a exhibition cum competition. With much reluctance, Tulsi agrees for her team not knowing that Viranis are also participating in the same exhibition. Tulsi meets Angad and Vrinda who take her to their home. Soon, Karan's son Parth locks horns with Vaishnavi while Sahil's son Dev, who is spoilt by Noina, develops a crush for her.
Tulsi and Mihir finally meet after six years but hiding his true feelings, Mihir fakes love for Noina so that Tulsi can move on and win the competition. Ritik fails to get permission from Munni for their new factory and blames Tulsi for his failure. He slits his wrist but Tulsi saves him. Gayatri and Shobha meet Tulsi at hospital where Gayatri apologizes for her past behaviour. Angad visits Ritik after his suicide attempt but both get into an heated argument as Ritik calls Angad a gold digger who is jealous of his brother and holds Vrinda responsible for breaking their family.
Tulsi discovers that the Viranis are in big financial crisis and even their ancestral home Shanti Niketan is mortgaged to Govardhan Virani's friend and businessman Prataprai Dhangiri of Surat. She even discovers Ranvijay's plot of taking over Virani Industries. Ranvijay tries to manipulate Angad for transferring shares if Virani Industries in his name. Prataprai calls Mihir and orders him to attend his great grandson's wedding with Tulsi and entire Virani family. Gayatri requests Tulsi to accompany them for the wedding as Prataprai is very conservative man who will not accept Tulsi and Mihir getting separated. He holds Tulsi in very high esteem and only she can convince him to give them some time to repay the loan. Tulsi agrees to visit Surat and fake her relationship with Mihir to be normal for the sake of her kids and Shanti Niketan. On the way to Surat, insecure Noina taunts Tulsi for her relationship with Mihir but Tulsi is unaffected. Mihir and Tulsi get some time alone but Tulsi avoids talking with him.
Ekta Kapoor, the producer of the show, plans to infuse the story with a modern sensibility to resonate with the younger audience. [7] The first promo featuring Smriti Irani was released by Star Plus on 7 July 2025. She made it clear that season two would not chase TRPs but aim to impact, entertain, probe thoughts, and inspire while raising important questions, sparking conversations, and standing out in a time dominated by visual gimmicks. [8]
Sumanta Bose, Head of Cluster, Entertainment, JioStar said, "It's a show which is just not only about entertainment. It was a character who fought patriarchy, who taught how to do right parenting. So, it was so ahead of its time and the new storyline that we have embarked on creating, it's going to reshape the way India looks at content." [9]
In December 2025, the show introduced a six-year time leap, depicting Tulsi and Mihir living separately after the revelation of Mihir and Noina's extramarital affair. [10] [11]
Smriti Irani and Amar Upadhyay returned to reprise their roles as Tulsi Virani and Mihir Virani. [12] Hiten Tejwani and Gauri Pradhan also returned to portray Karan Virani and Nandini Virani. [13] Other returnees are Shakti Anand as Hemant Virani, Ritu Chaudhary as Shobha Virani, Ketki Dave as Daksha Virani and Kamalika Guha Thakurta as Gayatri Virani. [14] Shagun Sharma, Rohit Suchanti and Aman Gandhi were introduced as the new generation characters. [15] Tanisha Mehta was cast as Vrinda Gokhale. [16]
In October 2025, it was confirmed that Sakshi Tanwar and Kiran Karmarkar would reprise their iconic roles as Parvati Agarwal and Om Agarwal from Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary in a special crossover with Kyunki... [17] [18] The crossover aimed to finally resolve the long-standing season one cliffhanger, revealing Baa’s last wish – for her property to go to Tulsi through Parth. [19]
In October 2025, Bill Gates also made his Indian television debut on Kyunki... to promote the Gates Foundation and raise awareness about child and maternal health, [20] in connection with a baby shower ceremony of Tulsi’s servant’s daughter in the show. [21]
The show recorded over 1.659 billion minutes of watch time across television and streaming platforms. [22] The show received 31.1 million television viewers in just four days. Out of which 15.4 million viewers had tuned in for the premiere episode alone, according to a press release by the channel. [23] The channel added, "The reboot season also witnessed 17,300 mentions across social media platforms." [24]
The latest count makes Smriti Irani led Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 the highest-rated fiction launch across general entertainment channels in recent times and the biggest-ever GEC fiction debut across both television and digital in India, the release added. [25] According to BARC, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2 recorded a 2.5 TVR on its launch day in the HSM Urban market (MF15–50 ABC demographic). [26]
India Today noted that the first episode serves as "a nostalgic trip down memory lane, bringing back iconic characters and moments without much new development." [27]
Some critics argued that the reboot relied too heavily on nostalgia rather than offering fresh storylines. India Today observed that while it successfully revived iconic characters, the premiere "brought little new development beyond sentimentality." [28] Mid-Day similarly noted that the show leaned on "sanskaar and kalesh" tropes without significant innovation, framing it as a sentimental but formulaic return. [29] NDTV highlighted that while Smriti Irani’s performance brought gravitas, the show risked "rehashing themes already explored two decades ago" instead of adapting to contemporary family dynamics. [30]
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Indian Television Academy Awards | ITA Award for Best Actress in a Negative Role | Shagun Sharma | Won | [31] |
| ITA Award for Best Actress Drama Popular | Smriti Irani | Nominated | |||