Maa Hai Na, a new cooking reality show hosted by Shilpa Shetty Kundra, made its debut on ZEE5 on June 12, 2026. The 10-episode series pairs celebrity contestants with their mothers in a kitchen competition format that blends culinary challenge with the dynamics of generational relationships.
The format centres on the idea that cooking reveals character, and that doing it alongside one’s mother amplifies both the triumphs and the tensions. Each episode places a celebrity mother-child pair in the kitchen with a task to complete under time pressure, against other competing duos. The show is as interested in what happens between the cooking as in the food itself.
Seven celebrity pairs make up the contestant roster. The show features Sunita Ahuja and her daughter Tina Ahuja, Urvashi Dholakia with her son Kshitij Dholakia, Tanya Mittal alongside her mother Sunita Mittal, and four further pairs: Gullu with Munesh Tanwar, Shahida Ansari with Afghan, Bhagyashree E Sharma with Rinju Sharma, and Manisha Rani with her father Manoj Kumar.
Urvashi Dholakia brings two decades of Indian television experience to the competition, having built her career across some of the medium’s most widely watched serials. Manisha Rani, who became one of the breakout personalities of Bigg Boss OTT Season 2 in 2023, has since built a following online and brings her characteristic energy to the kitchen. Their presence alongside lesser-known celebrity pairs gives the show a range of recognisability and warmth.
Shilpa Shetty Kundra, who has maintained a public presence through fitness advocacy, social media, and television since her film career of the 1990s and 2000s, takes on the hosting role with ease. Her own domestic and family life has been a subject of public attention for years, which gives her commentary on the show an added layer. She has described the series as capturing authentic family moments where nothing is scripted and everything is felt.
The series is built on a tension that many Indian households know: mothers insist on doing things the right way, while the younger generation wants to move faster and improvise. In the kitchen challenges, this plays out in real time. The show neither resolves nor mocks this gap; it lets it unfold and finds both its comedy and its warmth in the space between the two approaches.
Comedian Gaurav Kapoor appears throughout the series as a source of unpredictable energy, alongside television veterans Ali Asgar and Chandan Kumar. Their presence introduces moments of absurdist relief into the kitchen atmosphere, preventing the show from tipping into pure sentimentality on either end.
The show is produced by Lil Frodo Productions and streams in full on ZEE5. With ten episodes, it fits the shorter-run format that streaming platforms have increasingly favoured for unscripted content, allowing the series to sustain its premise without overextending it. Episodes are releasing in two parts through June 2026.
For Shilpa Shetty, Maa Hai Na is the latest in a series of television and OTT commitments that have kept her visible across a decade of change in the industry. She won Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa as a contestant and has made recurring appearances across formats. A show built around family, cooking, and generational friction is a natural fit for an actress who has spent much of the past decade rebuilding her public presence around wellness and domesticity.
Maa Hai Na is now streaming in full on ZEE5. It arrives at a moment when Indian unscripted television has experimented heavily with formats that centre real emotion rather than manufactured conflict. The combination of Shilpa Shetty’s hosting and the genuine chemistry between the competing pairs gives the show enough to carry an audience through ten episodes of kitchen chaos and complicated love.
