I had stopped watching teleserials way back in 2004-2005 time frame. Key reason was I couldn’t tolerate the saas bahu serials. They were regressive in all aspects. Herione was expected to be all sacrificing and the husband’s family will taunt her. In most cases there will be an other woman and this woman will be trying to snatch the hero from the herione. Whether in Hindi/Tamil or Malayalam a married woman was shown as wearing saree with big sindhoor, mangalsutra and crying. I was definetely not interested to watch such negative things after a tiring day in office. So years later it was about 2 months back while surfing through the channels I chanced upon a scene in Starplus where a husband keeps a laddle and pen side by side and tells his wife unless she picks the pen , he will not pick the laddle. It piped my curiosity. A serial where husband asking his wife to study, can this happen in Indian Television. I just decided to watch it and thus started my addiction to the teleserial " Diya and Baati hum" after a 7 year long hiatus watching teleserials. Diya Aur Baati hum is a refreshingly new take on husband wife relationship where the love of lead protaganists Sandhya and Sooraj is based on mutual understanding than adjustment. Sandhya a highly educated girl who wants to be an IPS officer is married of to Sooraj a sweet maker and 9th pass by her brother who wants to migrate to US. The story tells how love blooms between these unusual characters and Sooraj’s determination to see his wife fulfill her dreams despite various setbacks within the family. The very fact that a husband acknowledges the fact that his wife’s dreams are important as his definetley a positive change in Indian TV scenario. Though shown as a very obedient son to his mother, courage he shows to support his wife in hour of need is worth emulating. He acknowledges that Sandhya is taking pains to adjust to his family and he has a duty towards keeping her happy again a different take.In teleserials they always show the duty of wives but not that of husband. It is also to be seen that Sandhya tries to make the best of the situation given to her. She tries to adapt herself to the household chores she is not used to and one thing that clearly comes out in the serial is that Sandhya’s strength is her Sooraj and Sooraj’s strength is Sandhya. Another good thing the makers of Diya aur Baati has done is that they have challenged many superstitions through the character of Sandhya like feeding hungry children gives you more peace of mind than feeding brahmins in the name of customs. However the show has it set of drawbacks. They have still made Sandhya the all suffering bahu. Umpteen times Sandhya tells "parivar keliye sapna chod dughe" irrespective of her husband supporting her. Also Sooraj’s mother is shown as height of regressiveness who expects her bahu to be a good house wife and even Sooraj is shown as helpless in front of her fury at times. But then all cannot be changed together. But a good start has been made and I hope the show does not take a U-Turn and will maintain its USP. Now coming to other aspects of the serial like cast and Title song. Anas Rashid and Deepika Singh as Sooraj and Sandhya have a wonderful screen chemistry and this makes their subtle onscreen romance highly cute and enjoyable. Title song by Shubha Mudgal and Kailesh Kher is simply beautiful and the lyrics convey the entire theme of the serial. All in all I would recommend this serial that airs on Star plus Monday to Friday 9pm to all out there.