It’s all in the family: Saloni Gaur’s new podcast cuts across three generations

If you are a fan of comic Saloni Gaur, you’d know how intrinsic her family is to her life, as well as her comedy. Most often, you’ll find her family, especially her badass grandmother (dadi) making appearances on her reels—cracking one up with her snark and deadpan expression.

Beyond reels and shorts, Gaur has now roped in her family in a podcast series, The Pariwarik Podcast—which features Gaur, along with her mother and grandmother—as an extension of their daily conversations.

While humour is aplenty, the conversations touch upon a variety of subjects, like gender roles, marriage, fashion, and parenting, and introduce thought-provoking opinions from her family.

“I looked around and found every other person having their own podcast. While this was not the reason for my motivation, the number of interesting conversations we had at home prompted me to do it. Everyone is opinionated and goes off on their tangent, and I thought this could provide food (and humour) for thought,” she tells HerStory.

Conversations from a middle-class family

The Pariwarik Podcast is less of gyaan (advice) and more of everyday things relatable to a middle-class family. 

While her dadi was all swag and badass in the first episode, Gaur admits that the comments got a little out of hand in the second episode, which examined the generational shift that defined gender roles.

In a promo reel, dadi was heard saying that a family should have a son as a firstborn, which drew adverse comments.

Gaur defends her grandmother’s statement, saying, “In the episode, what dadi thinks is different from how I do. We cannot blame her for voicing her thoughts because she comes from a different generation conditioned to think like that. But if viewers had gone through the entire episode, they would have understood that she talks about equality.”

Her grandmother grew up at a time when she was forced into a ghunghat (veil) as a child and was married into a patriarchal family. Despite all, she ensured her children, especially her daughter, were well-educated.

For her podcast series, Gaur chooses the topic in advance, and while there is no structure to each conversation, the family discusses the talking points beforehand. Most of it is freewheeling, and some no-holds-barred comments by dadi have the audience praising her in the comments section.

“I am very happy with the response to the podcast so far. Though it’s a mixed bag, the engagement is very encouraging, and it’s seeing a lot of traction,” she adds.

The comic admits that the shooting of eight episodes has not been without incident. When the team was at her home for a recee, one of the sofa legs gave way.

Also, Gaur’s mother and grandmother had to get acquainted with a podcast mic—who were earlier used to speaking into a phone—causing hilarious moments.

Getting used to trolls

Trolls are always there, even after a four-year journey as an influencer/comic, but Gaur seems mostly unaffected until they pick on her grandmother.

“Trolling is bad, whether it’s of dadi or the young girl Prachi for her looks. I believe if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything bad,” she says.

She admits that the race for relevance in the influencing world is very important. However, she avers one must treat it like “proper work” and not just make a reel a week and stay away.

“One has to be consistent in doing the things one likes to do. You have to understand your audience and go with what they like, otherwise [they] will leave you. There are thousands of other influencers vying for their attention,” she explains.

Gaur aims to keep her content relatable and focus on trending topics. “My family is very entertaining; there is no dearth of relatable topics in a middle-class household,” she laughs, adding that her writing has become more refined, and so have her jokes in the process.

She agrees that influencing has become big business, and it’s important to “sell your content” to attract audiences.

“I need to think like a salesperson to market the content I have created on social media. While I keep my personal life private, those who show theirs are also selling it, and the audience is buying it,” she adds.