It’s the 90s world of Rajshri. A mansion. A joint family. A starchy patriarch/matriarch whose word is writ, everybody else shivers, cowers before the family dictator. Karan Johar put Amitabh Bachchan in that stern position in K3G and reversed the gender to give Jaya Bachchan the same unbending top place in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Step into the sprawling mansion of the Rathi parivar in Ratlam where Taoji (Kanwaljit Singh) is the stiff principled head of a large joint family. Like Karan Johar’s joint family in RARKPK, the Rathis too are renowned for their famous mithai. But Taoji’s rules are anything but meetha. More than four decades ago, there was a film called Ek Hi Bhool (1981). Those same 80s sentiments and ambience may be transplanted into the Rathi mansion and labelled, Ek Hi Jhooth. Taoji can never forgive a lie. His sister (Anjana Sukhani) is still paying the price for having fallen in love with someone outside their community. ‘It wasn’t about the community, it was her lying about it that Taoji cannot forgive,’ is underlined a couple of times. And in that claustrophobically tradition-bound ambience, the family is eternally grateful to Fufaji (Rajesh Tailang) who did them all a big favour for saving their reputation and marrying the tainted sister, now referred to as “Bua”.

We don’t usually see love stories on film or OTT much these days, so our eyes were peeled for Rajshri Production’s Bada Naam Karenge. The ambitious SonyLIV series unfolds like a feature film rather than a series. It’s easy to get invested in the romance between Surbhi (Ayesha Kaduskar) and Rishabh (Ritik Ghanshani) in a story set in Madhya Pradesh. But once we get to the heart of the matter, Bada Naam Karenge becomes jumbled under the weight of so many characters and remains a bit dated. The romance features two families: the wealthy Rathis of Ratlam and the middle-class Guptas of Ujjain. A possible rishta is floated between Rishabh Rathi and Surbhi Gupta. As the families explore their union through an arranged marriage, the audience learns about a hidden secret between the two. Will Rishabh and Surbhi get together, or will the expectations of their families get in the way? The story and screenplay of Bada Naam Karenge has been penned by S Manasvi. Vidit Tripathi has also helped out with the screenplay and co-written the dialogues. Moving to the past and returning to the present, the initial batch of episodes holds promise as the young couple’s story goes from enemies to lovers. Once the large cast of supporting players gets involved, it feels too behind the times. The main conflict between the two families also gets dragged out over the last few episodes, only to be quickly resolved over a big emotional scene.