Banoo Main Teri Dulhann - Sindoora gets to know about them

Finally the serial seems to be moving with a bit of speed. After the death of Sagar and Vidya at the hands of Sindoora, she must have felt that everything is all right. However, she would not have counted on the hands of reincarnation (anyhow, other serials such as Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki have taken 20 years to get revenge, so coming back in a new birth to take revenge falls in the same time frame).
So Sagar (now Amar) and Vidya (now Divya; in a more glamorous role - short skirts and attitude as opposed to her previous traditional bahu attire) are grown up and already meet in Benaras. They were initially opposed to each other, but soon started warming to each other and are now close to each other (especially when you share a lot of pain, being chased by rioters and having to depend on each other for saving your life).
They are also starting to remember things about their previous life, whether it be cooking kheer, or some temples and routes in Benaras, and are slowly starting to get flashbacks of their previous life, although without faces being clear. However, trouble will start chasing them soon in the form of Sindoora. She has already met Divya, and is very suspicious about her face resembling Vidya. And now when she tries to contact Divya in Benaras, Amar picks up the phone and Sindoora is shocked to hear Sagar's voice (actually Amar). Now the suspicion of Sindoora is clearly on these 2, and one waits to see how they will escape.

Videos of Banoo Main Teri Dulhann on the 25th of March:







Videos of Banoo Main Teri Dulhann on Youtube.

Kasturi - Just desserts for Kasturi right now

This is the beauty of making a serial, you can change the story any which way and thus cause the story to go on and on. In Kasturi, till some time back, the story was all about how Kasturi, the dutiful wife of Raunak would get revenge on music superstar Robbie for Raunak's death.
It all started at a stage in Kasturi's (Shubhangi Atre Poorey) life when she reaches a stage where family honor is at stake because of Robbie's doings. It is at that stage when Kasturi is facing everybody's anger that Raunak steps in and offers to marry Kasturi. Kasturi accepts and becomes devoted to Raunak, an ideal wife. However, Robbie is very angry about this and keeps on needling them both. And then Raunak dies and Kasturi blames Robbie for his death.
Kasturi eventually marries Robbie in order to gain revenge, and keeps on attempting to try to get revenge even while pretending to be a dutiful wife. She even pretends to be pregnant so that she remains loved by everyone. And even when she is revealed to be false, she still gains her revenge since Robbie falls severely sick and is comatose for an year.
Kasturi in the meantime returns home to Benaras, and coincidentally, Robbie is also taken to Benaras for treatment at an ashram where Kasturi meets him again. She tries to help him out, but it is too late. She soon finds out that everything she did was fake; Raunak is alive and she was just a pawn in the hands of Raunak to gain revenge on Robbie for all the past better treatment that Robbie had got as opposed to Raunak. She is mortified to know this, and despairs of the way that she had treated Robbie.
However, now Robbie cannot stand her. He blames her (rightly so) for everything that had gone wrong with him in the past 1 year, and wants to divorce Kasturi and instead marry Anita, who professes to love him.
The continuing story is about how Kasturi will suffer ill-treatment at the hands of Robbie and his mother Devika while staying devoted to Robbie. Robbie on the other hand just wants to get rid of her so that he can marry Anita. And then enters Devika's elder sister (Sudha Chandran), who will try and set things right.

A sample video of the serial from Youtube (watch more):

Kumkum - Reincarnation again

Kumkum - Ek Pyaara Sa Bandhan has taken a turn, no doubt inspired by Banoo Main Teri Dulhan. So, seeing as the story of Sumit and Kumkum had taken all turns, including many years leap, the creators of the serial made the serial take a new twist. So, when Sumit (Hussain Kuwajerwala) and Kumkum (Juhi Parmar), full of their love and bonding decide to visit a shrine to renew their marriage vows, and take the pheras again. The objective being that doing this will bind them in love for the next 7 lives. However, they still have to reckon with Pulkit who is after Kumkum. He follows them, and accidentally shoots Kumkum. Grief-stricken, Sumit also kills himself. The family cannot believe as to what has happened, and consult the wise sage to figure out what has happened. He reassures them that they will come back to earth in a new form, but in different families, and not in the same family.
And so it happens, with them coming back to different families; times moves quickly and they meet when young (where Sumit's father is setting up a food court that will affect a shop owned by Kumkum's father). Things will move from here, with the attention having moved away from the Wadhwa household. There is now very little attention on the children or other family members of Kumkum and Sumit from their previous life.

A video of the serial from 10th March

Banoo Main Teri Dulhan on Zee at 8 PM

When last seen, this serial was thought of reaching a strange conclusion with Sagar and Vidya both having been killed by Sindhura. However, this is now a story of reincarnation. Both Vidya and Sagar are destined to come back to this world with the same faces, new identities. And the concept would be that they would meet, and ultimately get Sindoora's guilt proven. So, the story moves on.
The 21 years after Vidya's and Sagar's death pass by in a flash, and soon a Vidya lookalike, Divya comes onto the scene. Given that this is a reincarnation, it is quite natural that everybody will start converging onto the same place; so Divya is born as a modern girl whom Samraat has started loving. When Divya brings her to the house as a guest, everybody is astonished since she looks exactly like Vidya.
Divya is very confused with all this attention that she is getting from people in the household and even outside who keep on calling her Vidya. Eventually she asks as to who is Vidya. Sandhoora is not happy with all this that is going on.
And then the movement towards meeting of Divya and Amar (the reincarnated version of Vidya). Amar is now loving in Benaras, and so it is but natural that Divya has to come to Benaras. And they meet, Divya initially having some strong words with Amar, although he is now somewhat getting fond of her; she however still feels strongly about having been forced to apologize to him. And so, it goes on.

A video from Banoo Main Teri Dulhan.

Update on Teen Bahuraniyan on Zee

Teen Bahuraniyan on Zee weekdays at 10:30 has been going through some strange events. For a TV serial, things have been changing a lot; must be easy being able to modify whatever you want from day to day in order to prolong the story. Anyhow, nobody could have predicted the story that the serial would take just a few weeks before.
The serial makers must have had some issues with the actress playing Manjeet (Manva Naik) since they decided to make her character suddenly vanish. So, in a short span, it was declared that first Manjeet saved Koki from getting kicked out of the house, and this totally turned Koki. Koki was now much more closer to Manjeet because of her actions, and seemed to turn a new leaf.
And then the bombshell. There was talk of a medical report, and it soon became clear that now Manjeet had a very severe form of cancer and the disease is in a terminal stage. The whole family is horror-struck, and especially Koki. Equally horror struck is Mahesh Gheewala (Prashant Chaddha), her husband. And then she dies soon after. The whole family is now in grief at the sudden departure.
However, things do not change suddenly in the household. When Bindiya wants to overcome her grief, her husband Rohit suggests her going to the office along with him in order to change her mind. Indu leaves no chance to try and taunt her or provoke Bindiya's mother with some words, but she gets little support.
Additionally, a new story has started where Vrinda's mausi's husband (injured and in a comatic state since the car crash), Sumit is regaining consciousness. He does not even know that his children have died 4 years back, and he is starting to ask for them. Vrinda tells all this to the family so that they know what is going on.

Videos of Teen Bahuraniyaan from Youtube.

Shararat comedy serial on Star Plus

For a break from all the heavy saas-bahu serials on Indian television, it is necessary that we have comedies also playing. Of course, many times these comedies are not exactly very good. One serial that does not try too hard, and manages to keep the whole atmosphere very light is called 'Shararat'. It used to originally appear on Star Plus, and now comes on Disney India. The serial is primarily based on an English serial called Bewitched.
The story is of 3 generations of a family. A long time back, a lady called Rani Devi was very good and kind, and she was given a blessing by a sage - she would get magical powers and these powers would be handed down the generations to daughters, not to sons. However, in a slight twist, Rani Devi sneezed at the sage when the power transfer was happening and the sage modified the power to be ineffective if the lady had a cold (this would be for a period of 24 hours).
This was from a much earlier generation, and now the modern generation has these powers as well. First there is Nani (grandmother Sushma played by Farida Jalal), her daughter Radha (played by Poonam Narula Goel), her son-in-law Suraj (played by Mahesh Thakur), and the grand-daughter Jiya (played by Shruti Seth). There is a constant skirmish between Mahesh and his mother-in-law (in fact, Mahesh got to know about the magical properties of his wife and mother-in-law soon after marriage and was not so happy). Whenever his mother-in-law gets angry with him, she turns him into some creature or the other.
Then there is Shanti Saberwal (Shoma Anand), the nosy neighbor who feels that something is strange in their house, but never can seem to find out exactly what. Things keep on happening mysteriously, but she can never figure out what exactly is happening. The serial also focuses on Jiya who is a recent learner of magic, and who also uses magic in her college (where she likes Druv), while a new girl Pam seeks to be the center of attention.

A video shot from the serial:

Aladdin, Jaanbaaz Ek Jalwe Anek on Zee TV

Based on the famous story of Aladdin and his magical lamp (and produced by Applause Entertainment & Sagar Arts with some Computer Graphics - but not comparable to the best of CG that you see in movies), this is a serial that is full of drama. The story of Aladdin is taken from the Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Persian fables. The serial appears on Zee (started on November 16, 2007) and appears every Friday, Saturday and Sunday on 7:30 PM (prime time for children).

The show has new actors playing the prominent characters:
Mandar plays the 15 year old Aladdin
Nazea Hasan plays Princess Jasmin
Ranvijay Razdan plays Jafar
Arjun Dutt plays the Ginnie

The story of Aladdin is pretty familiar to a lot of people - Aladdin is a young boy whose parents were killed in his childhood by a wicked magician (remind anyone of Harry Potter?); he is brought up by his mother's sister and her husband, and is not exactly treated very well. His parents Zoya and Zahir were killed by the magician Jafar; now Jafar wants to get the magic lamp for his own needs, but the lamp is buried in a cave and the only person who can get the lamp has to be from a certain clan, bearing the mark of the sun, and the most important, has to have a pure soul, and Aladdin has all these hallmarks.
So Jafar tricks Aladdin to learn magic from him, and then get the lamp. Aladdin, with his companions, learns a lot, and manages to reach the cave based on his skills. He somehow manages to get the lamp, and escape the cave, and he has also learned that Jafar motives were evil, so he evades the magician. Now Aladdin has a magical carpet and the lamp, and slowly moves from adventure to adventure, till he meets the beautiful Princess Jasmine, but with Jafar always after him, he cannot stay long. What will Aladdin do ? How can he escape the magician ? Does he get the princess ?
Watch the serial to learn more.

Watch a video from the serial:

Write on Crazy Hindi TV Serials

If you feel excited by the world of Hindi serials, Hindi news, reality shows, etc, and want to share your opinions, this is a great forum for you to share your views. You can like these serials, or hate them, as long as you have something to share, this forum is open to you.
Just write an email to hinditvserials @ gmail.com with your content. If you want to write on a regular basis, you can become a contributor to this blog as well, and be able to publish directly (but you will have to have 2 published entries before that).
Please also provide any website that you want to link back to, as well as any other details that you want to put.

Sudden turn of events on Kyunki ..

Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is a very long running show on Star Plus, occupying a prime time 10:30 PM slot. About a family and the various problems it faces, for the past several months, the story that it currently details is about the problems they face from within, from a family member.
Tripti, the wife of Sahil, has been on the warpath. Having first worked on getting Ganga out of Sahil's life 20+ years back, and then watching as Karan became rich while she stayed where she was, she grew more and more bitter and shrewish. And then, because it would make a new story, she was shown as having another husband, and then tricks Tanya and gets all the property in her name (I never did figure out how she managed to get all the property in her name).
And then in a series of incidents, Tripti is shown to have gotten killed, with the almost forgotten Mihir Virani being accused of the murder (doubtless Ronit Roy would have welcomed any amount of screen time on this serial, even if being accused of murder), and then sentenced to death (neglecting the fact that being sentenced to death under the Indian constitution is a rarest of rare case and needs to be confirmed by various courts, taking atleast a decade in most cases).
Then Tripti came back and called herself Babli with everybody but the police being convinced that she was Tripti. In the meantime, Ganga was got attacked twice by Tripti; Sahil was now convinced that he needs to take drastic action, so he faces off to Tripti with a gun and gets her to sign papers (he has not seen the movies where signing a paper under duress is not counted), and then she gets the gun and shoots him. Is this the end of Sahil (did he annoy Ekta Kapoor), or will there be a new twist ?

Sanjeev Kapoor presents Khana Khazana on Zee

Sanjeev Kapoor is a very famous chef now, running his own chain of restaurants; he is the closest India has to having a master-chef. One of the main instruments in making that happen is the weekly cooking show called Khana Khazana on Zee TV on Sunday (I believe that it appears at 12:30 in the afternoon).
The show is a very long running one, appearing since 1993. From what I remember, the show initially had a lady anchor, and one of the guest chefs on one of the episodes was Sanjeev Kapoor. His presence of the show was pretty impressive, and soon one found that the lady anchor was no longer there, and it was Sanjeev Kapoor who was running the show.
The show is fairly impressive, the instructions are very clear, and the chef looks dapper. He engages the audience, talking to them rather than talking down to them (like some good chefs can do). From time to time, he takes them on some exotic dishes, and at other times makes dishes that one can make and enjoy easily in the comfort of our homes.
In the recent past, as people have become more health conscious, the show has moved onto displaying a number of dishes that are low fat, low cholesterol and work to everyone's benefit. It is for these reasons that the show has never gone off, making a much watched presence on Sunday afternoon.

The Khana Khazana site. More recipes to be found here.

Video of one recipe:

">

Sa Re Ga Ma Lil Champs - Anamika Chaudhary won

Sa Re Ga Ma was a fairly popular music context on Zee, and Zee used the popularity of that show to launch another show with the same name, for kids, called Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs International. The contest began with the first broadcast on October 19, 2007, and ended with the finals on 01 March, 2008. The show started with 28 contestants from the age group of 6-14 years, and has a contestant to be eliminated every week. Given that these were kids, the show had more drama, and more emotion since eliminated kids tended to show more emotion, and had to be handled more delicately by the judges.
The judges for the show were Sonu Nigam and Suresh Wadkar. Auditions for the show were held in various Indian cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Ahemdabad; also in international locations with good Indian populations such as Britain, US, Dubai, Pakistan, South Africa, Israel, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, etc. The idea was to try and get participants from various countries; however, none of the finalists were from outside India.
The various weeks had some special flavored weeks such as Shahrukh's songs, Dhamal songs, Diwali special, etc. On such occasions, contestants had to sing songs based on these flavors. Like other serials, there were celebrity judges from time to time, such as Vishal Shekhar, Asha Bhonsle, Akshay Kumar, and the finals had Kajol and Ajay Devgun.
The seniors, that is, contestants who took part in the Sa Re Ga Ma contest earlier, such as Aneek Dhar, Raja Hasan, and Mauli Dhar all showed up to sing along with the juniors, and they were pretty good.
And now for the winners, out of the 3 participants, Anamika Chaudhary, Rohanpreet, and Tanmay Chaturvedi; and all of the received some fairly large awards, with:
Winner - Anamika Chaudhary - received Rs. 20,00,000 cash prize from Kidzee and Hyundai I 10
1st Runner up - Rohanpreet - received Rs. 15,00,000 cash from Kidzee
2nd Runner up - Tanmay Chaturvedi - received cash prize of Rs. 10,00,000 from Kidzee

Videos of Lil Champs episodes from Youtube

Saloni Ka Safar: Finally the gloves are coming off

There were some very interesting last few weeks in Saloni Ka Safar, with some of the scenes being very unrealistic. So, we had Saloni behaving very strangely against her family (under threat of harming the son of her brother-in-law and sister-in-law), to the extent that she told her husband that she had aborted her baby because having a child would affect her career. Initially, Nahar was shown as compromising, but when the abortion is revealed, he finally revolts and then the elderly matriarch of the family kicks her out.
When Saloni is thus out of her home, she has an accident (in which another of her sister-in-laws, Aditi-sa) dies, and Saloni suffers because of this accident. So, she has not only lost her memory (a not so new touch after an accident), but she has regressed back to the time when she was a kid, and does not remember incidents soon after her childhood (this touch was something new, since I have not seen such an interpretation before). This is a good time to bring Neel back into the serial, since he is again a good man (very hard to understand character, he keeps on switching between being a good man and a bad man - the next time he appears on the serial, I am sure that he will again be depicted as bad).
He takes care of Saloni, and this causes his fiancee (the beautiful doctor) to be suspicious of his intentions, especially since did not tell them about his history with Saloni. And then wonders of wonders, Nahar turns up in the same place (a bit hard to believe all the coincidences that keep on happening), sees a photo of Neel and points him out to Neel's fiancee's parents as a very undesirable character. However, by this time Nahar is incredibly angry (since he believes that Saloni has been deceiving him), and takes his gun (I am pretty sure that he does not have a permit for the gun) in order to kill Saloni. After some fights, Nahar is convinced that Saloni is innocent, and it does not take long for the love to come bursting back.
In the meantime, Jiji has come back into their life as the wife of their unknowing Kakasa, and makes their life miserable since he tells them about the son of Brajesh and his wife being alive, and at the mercy of Jiji. They agree to do whatever she wants as long as Jiji does not harm their son, and in the meantime, Kaka does not know anything about all this that is happening. Jiji has not forgotten her abiding affection for Brajesh, and does not forget to remind Tara about this.
It all comes together when in another natural event, Saloni gets her memory back (and after initially attacking Neel, she forgives him when requested to do so by Nahar). She then reveals that she had been doing all this based on the threats by Jiji, and it also seems possible that Nahar's sister had died due to Jiji only. At this, Nahar gets violent, wanting to kill Jiji, and then Saloni stops him; she will handle Jiji now.