5 wild Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi casting switches we pretended not to notice

Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi  is coming back with limited episodes, and all of us who willingly or unwillingly watched it in childhood, stare on with some amount of trepidation. If you grew up with KSKBT, you don’t forget the hijinks the show pulled on you, with changing actors so frequently…and then bringing them back.

Here are five times when they replaced actors, apart from the classic Mihir reversal of course, a character that was first played by Amar Upadhyay and then by Ronit Roy.

Gautami Kapoor replacing Smriti Irani…for a while

So several times throughout the show, the matriarch Tulsi (Smriti Irani) was believed to be dead. And in one case, she was considered dead enough that Irani wasn’t returning to show, and that Gautami Kapoor was taking her place. We believed it. Kapoor came, played meek and sweet Tulsi, looked after everyone, including bringing food for her son in jail, until it was suddenly declared that she wasn’t Tulsi. Yikes. She was an imposter, the real Tulsi was still lurking somewhere with amnesia. Uh oh.

But then Irani’s Tulsi returned, so all was well…..for around five minutes.

The Sahil dilemma

Ganga (Shilpa Agnihotri) was married to nice-ish Sahil, played by Sandeep Baswana. However, he stepped out of the show for a long time and Amit Sareen came in. And then Sareen left, and Baswana returned.

The Sanchi switching

Ah, cannot believe Kyunki really thought we wouldn’t notice. Bubbly Sanchi (Kratika Sengar) was initially supposed to be Nakul’s lover, and obviously, nothing worked out between them. Sangar stepped out, Anita Hassanandani stepped in as Sanchi, and we didn’t really know what happened between the two of them. And then….Sangar returned in the last episode as a completely different character.

Say what?

Who, Damini?

At first, there was a character named Damini, who was Tulsi’s step-son Karan’s  girlfriend (we’ll wait for you to swallow that). She was played by a different actress, and then she was changed, after Tulsi’s raging son married her to take revenge on Karan. Enter Riva Bubber, who played Damini from then on.

Bye, bye Laksh

Pulkit Samrat, who is now an established actor, made his debut with the show as the handsome Laksh. He falls in love with Mouni Roy’s Krishna Tulsi, but of course, the marriage never pans out, due to evil forces lurking in the corner. After having nothing to do for several episodes, Samrat was replaced by another actor, and everyone conveniently forgot the storyline with KT.