How Sameera Reddy & Her MIL Built a Saas-Bahu Bond That Breaks All Stereotypes
“What were your first impressions of each other?”
I pose this question to the effervescent duo — Sameera Reddy and her mother-in-law, Manjri Varde. Before this conversation, the rabbit hole of Instagram reels I went down clarified that the two don’t shy away from stepping on the toes of conventions of the societal saas-bahu (mother-in-law and daughter-in-law) dynamic, which usually pits one party against the other.
Their rapport is an outlier.
In response to my question, Sameera smiles, “She’s [Manjri] a bizarre mix. Her sense of dressing used to throw me off in the beginning — I never understood it. There was so much going on: colour, silver and quirk.” Cut to the present, and she’s come to love her mother-in-law’s whimsical, zany style index. “I even borrow some of her stuff now,” she laughs.
Manjri Varde and Sameera Reddy are the quintessential mother-in-law daughter-in-law duo that is leaving the internet in splits.
Manjri’s avant-garde energy, even at 75, has never failed to amuse her daughter-in-law. And this admiration cuts both ways. As Manjri points out, “My first impression of Sameera was that she is this lovely, tall, beautiful girl. She is so photogenic, right?”
In the last decade, these impressions haven’t waned one bit. Instead, their fondness for each other has only grown.
Sameera chimes in, “What really made me appreciate her was that she’s different. She’s cool and traditional at the same time. Her outlook is modern, where she’s thinking about me as much as about her son.”
The Sassy Saasu and Messy Mama
A fascinating dichotomy of contrasts.
That’s what Sameera and Manjri are. An interview call with them involved more than just the stars (pun intended) aligning, but favour from the internet Gods, too. Just as I thought, we’d finally cracked the code to a seamless interview, Sameera tells Manjri, “Please clean the lipstick off your teeth.” The latter hurriedly proceeds out of the frame to do so.
Sameera — actor, creator, and mom — is totally at ease in front of the camera while Manjri brings the same kind of confidence to her art, painting stories on canvas.
This intergenerational candour is fascinating. And I can attest, the reels you see, do a pretty good job of conveying their dynamic in reality, as well — they’re comedic gold.
The duo seizes every opportunity to resist the typical labels that one would expect from such a relationship. And the internet loves it; their fans laud them for their inventive take on sensitive topics. Take, for instance, the reel in which Sameera lays out a slew of names — mummyji, aunty, maa — asking Manjri how she’d like to be addressed. Well, none of them got Manjri’s seal of approval. Then, in a quintessential flamboyant style, she turns to the camera and says, “It’s Manjri.”
Talk about drama. These two certainly know how to work a camera.
Both Sameera and Manjri wear many hats. Sameera — actor, creator, and mom — is totally at ease in front of the camera, which owes to her celebrated journey in Bollywood and South Indian cinema. Manjri brings the same kind of confidence to her art, painting stories on canvas. Today, as an influencer duo, they are leveraging this creativity in front of the camera.
Manjri’s segue from an artist to an internet personality is fascinating.
The inflection point, she says, came during COVID-19. “We were stuck in our Mumbai home for three months. The city had become a ghost town; there wasn’t a sound,” she recounted in one TED talk. One day, Sameera pitched an idea, “Let’s recreate this reel,” she told her, referring to a trending dance sequence. It did not take a lot of cajoling for Manjri to agree.
“There was a part of me that was always okay with trying these things; I did not have any hangups or inhibitions,” Manjri had shared in her talk. Since then, they’ve kept pushing the envelope on their ideas.
In no time, the duo, with their characteristic magnetism, became an internet sensation. From one reel to now being the internet’s favourite ‘sassy saasu’ and ‘messy mama’ (the names Manjri and Sameera go by on Instagram), their digital journey took off. The day Manjri hit 100,000 followers, her daughter-in-law was beaming the brightest.
Each reel — whether it’s choosing matching outfits, addressing ‘woke mom’ dilemmas or bonding over football — the two refine the internet’s imaginative palate, dismantling every stereotype in the saas-bahu rule book.
That being said, the duo concede that they are polar opposites — Manjri loves herself some spice in food, Sameera hates it; Manjri loves loud music, Sameera loves herself some soothing tunes; Manjri’s wardrobe is colourful, Sameera is a monochrome girl. But despite these binaries, I believe there’s a lot they share common ground in.
Sameera Reddy and Manjri Varde identify as The Messy Mama and Sassy Saasu on Instagram.
One trait is courage. Manjri started modelling in her sixties, while Sameera’s intrepidity shines through her stance on unrealistic beauty standards, women and their independence, the importance of emotional health, and navigating postpartum depression.
With their courage and brazen nature, the two hold up a mirror to each other.
‘We’ve worked on our dynamic’
Every guest at Sameera’s home in Goa leaves with their tummy full of chocolate almond praline — a dessert she has learnt to perfect. But Sameera wasn’t always an ace chef, and Manjri clarifies there wasn’t any expectation to be one. “Sameera was an actress and had done so many movies. A person can’t be doing so much and in the kitchen too. To expect another person to cook [as an obligation] is wrong. If they like it and then they do it, it’s fine.”
While this did not ever become a point of contention, there were areas in which they had to recalibrate their dynamic, with Manjri’s soft-spoken nature finding a way around Sameera’s unfiltered frankness. But it wasn’t an overnight process.
Sameera and Manjri’s dynamic has evolved over the years and through their content on Instagram they want to challenge societal saas bahu conventions.
Sameera adds that their secret lies in supporting each other. “It’s not like I am all fearless or that she is all fearless. We know each other’s weak points. She knows how to handle those parts of me and vice versa. I think that’s the most interesting part. I always say, supporting women starts at home — we should uplift each other.”
Their content is a masterclass in how the duo subverts the tropes and lives their truth. Pointing to how they never do anything to satisfy the social appetite, Sameera says, “We don’t just put out content for the sake of it. We put out stuff that we feel will help bring a smile to somebody’s face or change the thought process of how a person wants to be with their in-laws. But we’ve never conformed. If anything, we’ve pushed the limits.”
Recalling a certain reel where it seemed as if Sameera had really pushed Manjri (when in fact, she just acted really well), Sameera talks about how it’s easy to become sceptical of what people will say. But even in times of doubt, Manjri is fearless, contesting any outmoded sensibilities that come her way. She credits her growing-up years in Mumbai for this. “I grew up in Bandra, where there was a lot of freedom and little to no bias. Being educated there, having broad-minded parents and then having a fabulous mother-in-law helped me. It made all the difference. ”
While Sameera has always found her anchor in Manjri and vice versa, it was during her pregnancies that this bond deepened.
Navigating postpartum with a woman of courage
“I lost all my confidence,” Sameera recounted about her postpartum in one interview. The added weight (not just reflected by the scale, but also people’s judgements) made her go into a shell. She felt “unworthy”.
But as she navigated her mental battle, Manjri would coax her, “This is temporary.”
Sameera recalls, “I used to not allow her to take photographs of me because I was so ashamed of the way I looked. I was going through a very bad phase. But she kept telling me that it was important to enjoy myself then, to take photographs that would serve as memories later.”
Sameera goes on, “I was quite depressed. But she gave me so much strength by telling me that I was conforming to society’s expectations of what I should look like after having a baby. The best advice she gave me was, ‘This is not it. There’s so much more!’.”
Today, as they sit in their Goa home, embraced in nature and each other’s company, Sameera reminds Manjri of that same advice — there is so much more. “I think her journey has just begun. I want her to travel the world, meet different people and explore. She’s capable, confident, and she has it in her.”
Through their content, Sameera and Manjri are scripting a rhetoric of how independence and confidence should be a prerogative of every woman.
Edited by Saumya Singh; All pictures courtesy Sameera Reddy
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