Two Bahus, One Kitchen

A recipe for chaos or sisterhood?

- Kanchan S

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. But in many Indian households, especially those clinging to tradition, it has long been the battlefield—where the scent of simmering curries mingles with the pressure of perfection, unspoken rivalries, and decades-old expectations. Now add two women to this mix, both married into the same family, both navigating their space, identity, and contribution. Are they co-sisters or competitors? The answer, in today’s India, is more nuanced than ever.

In traditional homes, the older daughter-in-law often bore the brunt of expectations—upholding customs, performing rituals, managing temperaments, and often becoming the benchmark against which the younger bahu is judged. But modern life doesn’t always permit such hierarchies to hold weight. Today, one co-sister may be in Gurgaon running a fintech startup, the other in Goa freelancing as a digital illustrator. Their routines don’t revolve around the same rituals anymore. Their kitchens are styled by Pinterest boards, not mother-in-laws’ recipe books. And their emotional bandwidth is stretched between work deadlines, school runs, self-care, and weekend brunches.

Still, the old echoes remain. Take Tanya and Sakshi—two women who don’t share a kitchen, but share a surname and a complicated bond. Tanya, a corporate strategist, is married to the elder son and lives abroad. Sakshi, a content creator, married into the same family five years later and lives in India. They only meet at family events—Diwali, anniversaries, the occasional destination wedding. Their Instagram exchanges are polite. Their real-life conversations, cautious. In their first few meetings, Sakshi found herself being introduced as “the fun one” while Tanya was described as “the achiever.” Labels stuck, and the space between them widened.