The Family Man is predominantly about a man trying to balance his spy life and family life. There are not many female characters in the show but the ones present have a significant role to play in the series. The most prominent female character is Srikant’s wife, Suchitra or Suchi as she’s called. She is played by the national award winning Priyamani who works mostly in the south Indian film industry. She isn’t just the wife of the spy in The Family Man. 

When we’re introduced to her character, she seems to belong to  the “nagging wife” trope. But towards the end of the first episode, her world starts to open up to us. The wife of the family man, Suchi is a professor of psychology and a mother of two children. Her character is well-written and not defined only in relation to her husband. She has dreams and aspirations and the will to achieve them. She is not held back by domestic constraints and takes a bold step of quitting her monotonous job as a professor to work in a start-up. 

All of this is not shown as progress enabled by another entity, rather, she chooses it for herself. The show deals with an uncomfortable question of what happens when the woman does something other than that which is ‘expected’ of her.

The general representation of working women in the media is often skewed. They are shown as women in distress, struggling hard to manage home and work. They have no cooperation from their families and are always asked  to choose between their kids and their job. More often than not, they give in to domesticity. However, this is not the case in The Family Man. Just like Srikant is shown mostly immersed in work, Sushi’s scenes also show her at her workplace. Although switching jobs isn’t an easy choice, she takes the plunge in her career and shines in it. This is a different representation of the working woman and the makers of the show have done a good job of normalising it.

Moreover, Suchi has her shades of grey. She forms a bond with a man from work, Arvind. Towards the end of the show, it looks like she feels something for Arvind but her feelings aren’t clear. She continues to tread the path of her bumpy marriage while still figuring out her equation with Arvind.

We need more female characters like Suchi to serve as role models for women. Such representation of women in media shows the changing dynamic of families in India. Instead of glorifying women who sacrifice everything for their family, let's normalise women who ‘dare’ to step out of their household to carve out a career for themselves.