5 iconic actors missing from Smriti Irani's Kyunki Saas 2.0: From Mouni Roy to Pulkit Samrat

It’s the 2000s all over again. Smriti Irani is back to pouring water over the Tulsi plant, and explaining to the audience about sanskaar and drama. Fan-favourites, Karan (Hiten Tejwani) and Nandini (Gauri Pradhan) are back, along with other loved members of the cast, including Shakti Anand, Amar Upadhyay who were the original Mihir Virani, Kamalika Guha Thakarta as Gayatri, and Ketaki Dave, who played Daksha in the show.

However, familiar faces were missing from the promos, including Shilpa Agnihotri’s Ganga, Apara Mehta’s Savita Virani, who played the mother-in-law in the original show. More conspicuous by their absence, were Mouni Roy’s Krishna Tulsi, and even Pulkit Samrat’s Lakshya. However, Samrat had left the show early on, with rumours of bad blood between him and Ekta Kapoor. And where did both the Mandiras go? There’s no sign of Sumeet Sachdev’s Gautam either.

Nevertheless, here’s a lowdown on the other characters who might be MIA from the new show:

Played by Riva Bubber, Damini was one of the daughter-in-laws of the house, who gradually was sidelined throughout the show and with little or no dialogue. Her only crucial storyline was at the beginning, when she married Gautam, and when she decided to take revenge on Tulsi and send her off to the mental asylum.

Played by Rakshanda Khan, Tanya, started off as a villain, to separate the two lovers, Karan and Nandini, and then turned good, married Karan, when Nandini was in coma, only to turn evil 20 years later, because she realised that Karan never truly stopped loving Nandini. Talk about complicated.

He still gives fans chills: Akashdeep Sehgal played the role of the villainous Ansh Gujaral, the missing son of Mihir and Tulsi. And finally, pushed to the brink, Tulsi kills him in one episode, which of course gets her brickbats from the family. Nevertheless, Sehgal returned as Eklavya, who also turns evil and conniving. Yikes.

At one point, Mouni Roy’s perky Krishna Tulsi was expected to take on the Tulsi baton, but her plot was sidelined after she was ‘tricked’ into marrying Eklavya, thinking that she was ending up with Pulkit Samrat’s Lakshya. Check who you’re marrying folks!

 The next villain after Mandira was Tripti Virani, who conned Sahil into marrying her…or rather, well, he cheated on his wife with her. So.