Kasturi - the traditional amnesia tactic

When a serial lands in problems or the story needs to be elongated, there are some traditional measures that can be adopted such as amnesia, plastic surgery, etc. All of them are great for changing not only the person playing the character, but also help in adding a few weeks to the serial. And so it proved in Kasturi; just when the confrontation between Kasturi and Raunaq seemed to reaching a peak and Robbie would become totally aware of the truth of Raunaq, things changed. So what did happen ?
Well, Kasturi decided that she needed to strike back, so she pretended to behave madly. In the midst of this, Raunaq and Anita decided that they really do need to end the life of Kasturi, and they can drop her off a cliff after drugging her; she however is prepared and tries to turn the tables on them. However, in the end, she is the one who gets shot and falls off the cliff, and her mother blames Robbie for this happening.
And then, the final shocker (but you must have expected it); the elder mausi (Sudha Chandran), the do-gooder who had helped Kasturi till now was actually deeply envious of her sister and will do anything to break her sister and her wealth. She convinces them to keep Robbie under guard, and handles the accusations by Kasturi's mother and the police. And then wonders of wonders, they find Kasturi in a destitute women's home (just when they discover that they need Kasturi's signature to get the wealth transferred to Raunaq); however, because of the trauma and the injuries she suffered, she is now just like a child with amnesia. However, is this a ploy by Kasturi to get her revenge ?

Updated videos of Kasturi on Youtube (link)

Kumkum - Ek Pyaara Sa Bandhan

In the rebirth of the serial, Kumkum and Sumit land up in families far away from each other. Their life moves through at fast speed, and soon they reach their adulthood (after all, if they are shown as children for a long time, what happens to Hussain and Juhi Parmar - they would tend to get mighty impatient!). So, soon they reach at a point where the come into contact with each other; but totally opposite; their fathers are in conflict with each other.
And then suddenly you are witness to an extraordinary sight - Kumkum gets stuck in a spot while helping Mini, and had to cook up a story such that she is actually married and was with her husband (and this was asked by neighbors apparently, and then imagine that she could cool up a story that she was married without telling her strict father); you can imagine the rest - in a mistake, Sumit is acknowledged to be her husband, and she is not able to deny this. Her father is horrified at her selection of a husband, but is slowly coming around to accept this. Sumit is away from home after a misunderstanding with his father. He accepts this arrangement of being a false husband since Kumkum convinces him that she has the information that he is looking for.
Kumkum's chachi smells a rat and is very suspicious that Kumkum is lying, and tries various gambits to find out the truth. Imagine this, Kumkum is forced to spend several nights with Sumit in a closed room, and even though nothing happens during this time between them, just the fact that she spent the night with him means that she cannot retrieve her reputation now. Sumit is stuck in his own problem, trying to accept that his cousin Ratan is trying to kill him to get him out of the way. Ratan is under the influence of his mother Ramola. Kumkum in the meantime leaves her home and goes to Sumit's home where Ratan sees in her an opportunity to control Sumit.

Raja Ki Aayegi Baarat - the strange story

Raja Ki Baarat is a serial that appears on Star Plus at 8 PM weekdays (Mon to Thur). It is a show about a girl called Rani, only 17 years old. She is the support of her family after the passing away of her father, and works in the big mansion (who lives in this kind of lifestyle anymore). She is very good at what she does (and she essentially works as a servant in the house), in addition she is very dedicated and honest (although the senior Bhanumathi can't stand her). The other main character of the serial is the prince, Yudhistir, who is very aware of his status. He is not arrogant, but very much aware of his tradition and duties, and will act in the manner prescribed by tradition.
In this family, the Raja Surya Singh Rathore is the strongman of the family, the absolute patriarch; his word is law in the family and he believes in his elder son. In addition, there are the 2 sisters to whom he is married - the Badi Rani and the Choti Rani. The Badi Rani is bed ridden, and does not speak. The entire family cares for her; however, it turns out that the Choti Rani (her younger sister) wants to get rid of the Badi Rani and get the focus onto her son Ranbir rather than the elder son (Yudhistir), who is after all the son of the elder Rani.
Towards this end, she is trying to poison the Badi Rani (her own sister) and Rani is getting caught up in this game, since part of her duties is to attend to the Badi Rani and give her the medicine. Now the Badi Rani is poisoned, her life is saved but she is in a coma, and the blame starts getting put on Rani. How does she get out of this and prove her innocence ?

Here are a whole set of Videos from the serial (link)

Update on Kayamath - so finally she can stop crying

It seemed like in every episode of Kayamath, Prachi does nothing but cry. So it was somewhat relieving to see that there was finally an episode in which she is happy. And why is she happy ? Because the inevitable finally happened. The long long (too long in my opinion) scene of Milind having lost his memory, and then ditching Prachi for Ayesha (with Ayesha doing a lot of manipulation, portraying herself as the perfect manipulative and ruthless person, and combined with getting half of the dialogues where she only speaks to herself) finally turns around.
Milind, even though he seems to have not regained his memory, cannot stay away from Prachi to the utter disgust of Ayesha who tries everything possible to threaten Prachi, and to plot against her (including manipulating a relationship between Sukriti and Alaap, only thwarted when Milind sees Prachi telling Alaap to stay away from Sukriti). In all this, nobody ever suspects that Ayesha is the one behind all this.
In the end, Milind refuses to marry Ayesha, getting up from the actual marriage place (just the night before, he had told Prachi that he loved her, but he was duty bound to marry Ayesha). Ayesha is devastated by this and cannot believe that Milind is rejecting her for Prachi. Further, right then a fire happens, and in the midst of this fire, Milind miraculously regains his memory (you just need to tap them on the head and they either lose their memory or regain it). And then of course, he recognizes that Prachi is the one that was with him, and they get ready to marry. And in the midst of all, they want Ayesha to attend (after rejecting her and humiliating her, they want her to attend !).

Videos of Kayamath on Youtube (link)

Ghar Ki Laxmi Betiyaan - The end of Bhavishya ?

Many months ago, Saraswati was shown as having got married to Bhavishya, the worst time of her life. He caused immense torture to her, and then tried to burn her. She finally got out this problem, and Bhavishya was diagnosed as being mentally ill and sent to a mental hospital.
And then the rule of the doubles came in; Durga met a young man who looked exactly like Bhavishya. The family was very suspicious of this new person, but slowly everybody (and hesitantly Sawaswati) got over the whole worry and accepted him. He married Durga, and things seemed to be fine. He was actually genuine, and then Bhavishya, having got out of the hospital in some way, kidnapped this guy and took his place. And then he started plotting again.
He started drugging Durga, and had more plans to cause problems to the rest of the family. He also caused immense tensions between Durga and Saraswati, and eventually for Saraswati to be declared as mad and sent off to a hospital. But now his game seemed to be up; both Karan and Lakshmi realized his truth and plotted as to how to expose him. And eventually, the sisters and Savitri cornered him, and burned him to death (not good, you should never show using murder for any kind of revenge; it is illegal and gives essentially wrong advice to people).

Video of scenes from the final confrontation:

Latest update on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

Seems like the saga of the Smriti Irani based character, Tulsi is now in full flow. At some point in the past, there was a fall-out between Ekta Kapoor and Smriti (primarily based on the fact that Smriti started her own production house and was spending a lot of time on this effort). So, in an accident, Smriti got removed from the serial and in her place, Gautami was brought in (with plastic surgery to explain the face change from Smriti to Gautami). Gautami soon managed to get enough proof to convince everyone that she was the real Smriti, and also acted in ways that resembled the old Tulsi (I always get confused about this, given that she is going to be stepping into a marriage with a live husband - what happens when there is the expectation of intimacy between the 2?).
So anyhow, soon Smriti came back into the serial (with a lot of fanfare), and poor Gautami was suddenly shown as a conspiring fake person, in cahoots with Mandira in order to defraud the family of the entire property and then run away with all the money. And Mihit became the good person again, having gone to Mandira's side only for the purpose of trying to find the reality of Tulsi's reality; he soon discovers that his suspicions are correct, that she is indeed fake, being in reality Juhi Thakral.
Over a period of weeks, they show Smriti (having lost her memory) getting closer to ShantiNiketan without any of her children ever seeing her.
And now, Mihir wants to prevent the family from donating the property to Juhi, while the family does not believe either Mihir (or Shobha to whom Mihir has revealed the truth); they believe that Mihir is not worth believing anymore (imagine, they don't believe their own father). Juhi is happy since she believes that she will get the entire property, but fate has something else to say. When Juhi sees Mihir and Tulsi together, she panicks and tries to run them over with her car. They both survive, and finally reach ShantiNiketan to stop this property transaction from going through.