India, June 5 -- In the fifth season of SonyLIV's Gullak, a conversation between Shanti Mishra (Geetanjali Kulkarni) and her husband, Santosh (Jameel Khan), beautifully captures the evolving face of India's middle class. Reflecting on a shift familiar to many modern parents, Shanti notes that while she willingly embraced a life of simple compromises, her children view life through a different lens. Her minor observation that their eldest son, Annu (Anant V Joshi), can no longer sleep comfortably without an air conditioner speaks to a larger generational truth: the baseline for comfort has shifted. Expecting a future daughter-in-law to adapt to past hardships is no longer realistic.

This single piece of dialogue gets to the very core of s...