Shastri Sisters / Soul Sisters

They say, a sister is the best friend you’ll ever have. As the name suggests, Shastri Sisters highlights that very bonding between four sisters — Alka, Anushka, Devyani and Peeya, from Kanpur. The siblings have lost their mother at a very young age and have been brought up by their aunt, while their father, Shastriji works at the post office. With no saas-bahu drama, neither revolving around any social issue, the plot is distinctly different.
The story moves forward with Shastriji getting transferred to Delhi. The girls move along with him and the story becomes all about the shift from a small town to a big city and the struggles that come with it. At times, the show would instantly remind you of Little Women.
However, the fresh cast still needs to learn its lessons as the acting is not very impressive. The dialogues are well-written with a garnishing of the typical Kanpuri flavour. But since they are not very well expressed, it loses out on what could’ve been really charming. The background score is also a very quintessential dramatic that one would find in a show on Indian television.
Coming back to the plot, there is a simultaneous romantic track going on between Alka, the eldest sister and Rajeev, a local boy in Kanpur, which dies its natural death as the family shifts to Delhi. There’s no humour as such, and whatever little is there, it will fail to click with the urban audiences. The shots are extremely repetitive and tend to get monotonous. For instance, Alka and Rajeev have merely one long romantic conversation before she leaves and the same conversation is repeated time and again in the same episode, eventually slowing down the pace to an annoying level.
While, Shastri Sisters fulfills all the typical requirements of an Indian show, it also has nuances that will make you sit right up. Like the characterisation of every sister is immensely powerful. It is so well-written that even without the most perfect actors, one can predict how every sister will react to situations in her own way. All of them have their own peculiarities and traits that became glaringly evident in the first 30-minutes of the show. Even as the screen space is divided among the four protagonists, leaving very little space for any one, the show manages to highlight the different personalities perfectly. Somewhere, behind all the brewing drama, there is a deep and touching emotional connect between the sisters that will make you momentarily want to call your sibling.

Verdict: A different well-written plot that will take a while to catch up.