Bandini - the serial by Balaji Telefilms on NDTV Imagine

Bandini is a brand new serial on NDTV Imagine, scripted by Ekta Kapoor (Balaji Telefilms). Ever since television channels starting giving up on traditional saas-bahu serials, Balaji has changed track to some degree and now focuses on different serials. Bandini is a different type of serial, but there are some commonalities that one can still see - the portrayal of a bitchy elder relation (in this case, the elder sister-in-law who treats the young bride as a maid brings back some of the character traits seen in the earlier serials). Bandini is supposed to be based on the Gujarati novel Retpankhi, written by Varsha Adalja in 1972.



Bandini is the story of a young illiterate lower caste girl 18 year girl called Santu (played by Aasiya Kazi) who lives in a fictional village called Dharampur, near Surat, in Gujarat state, western India. This is a belt that is the center of the diamond exporting industry, and the village's richest man and the 'malik' is played Ronit Roy, who plays the role of Dharamraj Mahiyavanshi. He is a good man, middle aged (51 years old) who is a widower. He has multiple sons and daughters, some adult, and some teenagers. He also runs an empire with more than 2000 workers employed by him, and has tended to become egoistical with age.
Dharamraj's first wife Subadra died 7 yrs ago. He has three sons, Hiten (23 years old), Maulik (19 years old) and Suraj (7 years old), and two daughters (Kadambarai alias Kaddu, 20 years old) and Birwa (14 years old). The children have been care for by Dharamaraj's unmarried elder sister, Tarulata, who is very aware of caste and class, and uses that as a basis to essentially hate Santo.
However, for Santu, her life takes a drastic turn, when in a sequence of events, an office boy Mahesh is supposed to marry Khemi, Santo's sister (so that Santo's father cannot leave the factory). However, Khemi's horoscope has a problem, and then Santo is set to marry Mahesh. However, Dharamraj's rivals arrange to make Mahesh run away, and in order to pacify the agitated workers, Dharamraj decides to marry Santo, as a marriage of convenience. Also, his priest tells him that Santo is a good choice in terms of horoscope. And thus starts Santo's life change. She is now part of a rich household, married to a much older man, who really does not care for her and who still is devoted to his dead wife.
Santo tries to do good all around, helping out in a situation where the family and the factory desperately needs a new contract, helping in the process to also bring back the disgraced son Hiten who turns out good in the end. She is now in a new issue where the daughter of the house is romantically involved with the son of the rival (who wants to use her to settle scores), and when she is set to be engaged to the son of old family friends (and the son of that family was in love with Santo earlier). Such a combination of events can only be spun by Ekta Kapoor.

Videos of Bandini 4th June on Youtube:

Part 1


Part2


Part3


Part 4