Over two decades of unapologetic existence: How Tulsi Virani refused to disappear

Poster of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi from JioHotstarDecades have seen Hindi daily soaps presenting a blueprint which exemplify women as vessels of sacrifice. Indian television did not ask women to be complex but rather patient; to endure and to absorb. Across living rooms tuned into the wave of daily soaps that followed, the “ideal woman” was often written as someone who gave endlessly and questioned very little. Sacrifice was not just a trait, it was the personality of a ‘good woman’; it was the narrative reward.

And yet, right at the centre of this ecosystem was Ekta Kapoor’s Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi in which stood Tulsi Virani, a character who seemed to follow the rules, but never quite dissolved into them. Tulsi seems to fit the mould created by society. She is dutiful, deeply rooted in family, and willing to put others before herself. She sacrifices frequently, visibly, and sometimes to an extreme. But to read Tulsi only through the lens of sacrifice is to miss what made her enduring. She did not disappear into her suffering, she did not wear silence as virtue. She spoke and acted unapologetically. She did not cry, she did not scream, but she was always loud and stern enough for everyone to understand. And in the landscape of daily soaps, that matters.

Tulsi did not carry the burden of her family quietly. She named injustice when she saw it, even when it came from within the very structures she was expected to protect. She argued with authority, questioned decisions, and at times, stood in direct opposition to those she was meant to obey. Her strength was not measured by how much she could endure without complaint, but by how unwilling she was to normalise what felt wrong. This is where Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi subtly but significantly diverged from the dominant template. It did not discard the idea of sacrifice but rather reframed it. Tulsi’s choices were not always passive outcomes of circumstance; they were decisions, often taken with a clear sense of right and wrong. Even when she gave up something, she did so with agency, not resignation. That distinction is easy to overlook, but it changes everything.

The archetype of the “tyaag ki devi” thrives on quiet suffering. She absorbs pain, rarely resists, and is ultimately celebrated for her ability to remain unshaken in silence. Tulsi, on the other hand, was rarely silent. Her morality was not expressed through submission, but through confrontation. She did not seek conflict but she did not avoid it either and crucially, she did not allow herself to be reduced to a single role.

Television has long had a tendency to turn women, especially mothers, into emotional anchors who exist solely for others. Their identities blur into caregiving, their individuality sacrificed at the altar of family. Tulsi resisted that flattening. She was a mother, a daughter-in-law, a wife but she was also a moral centre, a decision-maker, a presence that actively shaped the narrative rather than quietly supporting it. She did not become the ever-sacrificing, all-forgiving figure who exists only to hold everyone else together. She held her ground too. This made her both familiar and unsettling. Familiar, because she reflected the realities of many women navigating family expectations. Unsettling, because she refused to do so quietly. She occupied a space that television rarely allowed its female characters to inhabit, a space where belief in tradition did not automatically translate into submission to it.

Within the dramatic, often exaggerated world constructed by Ekta Kapoor, Tulsi’s clarity stood out. Plotlines twisted and turned, characters came and went, but Tulsi remained consistent in one crucial way: she did not apologise for who she was. She did not soften her convictions to maintain peace, nor did she dilute her sense of right to remain agreeable. In many ways, that unapologetic presence is what continues to define her legacy. Today, as Indian television and streaming platforms often attempt to write and rewrite  women as layered, conflicted, visibly flawed, there is a tendency to equate realism with indecision. Characters hesitate, question themselves, and unravel in ways designed to feel relatable. Tulsi belongs to a different grammar of storytelling. She was not written to hesitate. She was written to hold. And perhaps that is why she still feels real. Not because her world made sense; it often didn’t. Not because her life was plausible; it rarely was. But because, within that chaos, she remained certain of her values, her boundaries, and her voice.

Tulsi Virani did not reject sacrifice but she refused to be consumed by it. She did not reject family but she refused to disappear within it. In an industry that has long equated a woman’s strength with her ability to give herself away, Tulsi offered something quieter, but no less radical; the possibility that a woman could stay, fight, care, and still remain fully, unapologetically herself.