MUMBAI: Since the past few days, there has been a lot of talk that Ketaki Dave was all set to come back in Balaji's Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
It would be recalled that some time back when Ketaki was a part of the serial, Balaji Telefilms' creative director Ekta Kapoor had allegedly told her to take off on actor Shruti Ulfat who anchored Chalti Ka Naam Antakshari, also airing on Star Plus. Ketaki reportedly put her foot down and left the serial. While leaving, she had said, "I found it a bit too much. It's something I just couldn't do. It was unethical for me, as an actress, to take on another. It all looked so malicious. I told Ekta I didn't want to carry on in a serial which unnecessarily wanted me to make fun of other actresses."

The (third) anniversary episode of 3 July was said to be the date when Ketaki would make her comeback. A senior artiste from the serial had even confirmed this to indiantelevision.com. There was talk that Ekta Kapoor had decided to get Ketaki back because she had been told by Star Plus that the serial was lacking in comedy and she urgently needed to do something about it. Came 3 July, but no such thing happened.
The latest is that, inspite of the fact that they tried hard, Ketaki and Ekta could not kiss and make up. When contacted, Ketaki was forthright, "I am not coming back in Kyunki.... Ekta had asked me to re-join the serial. She called me home to discuss the whole issue. We met, but there were some nitty-gritty details which could not be thrashed out."
We probed. Nitty-gritty issues like? "Dates," Ketki replied. We probed further. Only dates? "Well, of course, money too," she quipped.