Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - Andhak moves forward, Ram on the verge of his exile

As usual, the serial continues to ensure that it keeps on moving fast in the story and not letting people get bored (while so many stories continue to remain slow and start boring people who have so many alternatives nowadays). The 2 stories that have been ongoing right now are the story of Andhak and the story of Ram, and you would expect the story of Ram to be a bigger story, since it is also the story where the defeat of Ravan happens.
So, the story of Andhak is the story where this guy will be a great warrior, but evil in all ways. As Mahadev explained, Andhak was born when Mahadev's eyes were closed by Parvathi for a brief instant, and in that time, when there was darkness everywhere, Andhak was born. He was born blind and adopted by a passing king and his wife. However, soon after, the king had natural children and his affection for this blind boy started reducing. The boy was also taunted by his other half-brothers, who made fun of his blindness and did not give him any love or affection, which in turn further increased his evilness. All this while, Mahadev knew where this was leading.
Finally Andhak, when older was paid a visit by Narad Muni who was trying to set him on a path where he would be trying to tough prayer to Brahmadev, but Andhak took this seriously and started some intense prayers to Brahma, and finally Brahma had to come and be pleased with his prayers (after Andhak started sacrificing his body as a part of prayers). But the boons that Andhak took from Brahma showed that he was on the path of more evil, since he got a boon from Brahma to get extremely strong ear power, he could immediately understand everything that was going around due to his hearing. And then the other thing was that his death was made more difficult since it would only happen when he asked for sight, which Andhak thought could never happen. Soon after, he had a fight with his brothers where he defeated them and then imprisoned them and his parents and took over. Now, Mahadev met him, but he was stuck on going on the path he was taking.
On the other side, in Ayodhya, things were going fine. Ram had grown older and his father, king Dashrath, wanted to ensure that he finally placed Ram on the throne succession and was going to announce the same. However, this was not the right thing since the mission of Ram was to kill Ravan, and so every god wanted to ensure that Ram did not take the throne and instead setout on a mission where he could finally kill Ravan. So, since Manthra was there to sway Queen Kaikeyi, she finally managed to persuade the queen that the placing of Ram on the throne would ensure that her own son Bharath would not have any further power and she in turn would become a servant to Ram. Finally, after a lot of persuasion, the Queen decided to exercise the twin vows that the king owed to her. She finally went to the kind and told him what she wanted; he was shocked and tried to change her mind. She refused and said he could of course go back on his vows, but that was not possible; and when Ram got to know the reason for his father suffering, he said that he would do whatever Queen Kaikei wanted.

Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - The birth of a mighty evil warrior, Andhak

The serial continues to remain popular, and remains a fast paced serial (unlike many previous mythological serials that took a lot of time in progressing, and where you could not see the serial for a couple of days and not miss anything). Another specialty that the serial seems to have is the concept of always having 2 stories going on at the same time. So, while right now the serial had been focusing on the story of Ram for some time, with the story of Hanuman also being shown, the expectation was that the serial would continue to focus on the story of Ram and Hanuman. However, the serial sprung a surprise by showing another story in between, temporarily leaving the story of Ram aside.
The story of Jalandhar was about the story of a creation due to the release of energy from Mahadev's third eye, that could not be taken back, and which eventually converted into a baby, a baby born of the fierce energy of Mahadev's third eye. A similar story is being shown in the serial right now. So, at a time when the marriage of Lord Ram had happened and they were settled in Ayodhya, life was peaceful and there was nothing major going on to trouble Mahadev right now. So, the followers of Mahadev and Goddess Parvathi decide to have a game in Kailash, with the game between her and Mahadev, and she is reasonably confident that she will win the games.
However, near the end, something happens which changes the entire atmosphere. Parvathi covers the eyes of Mahadev in playfulness, and he immediately reacts in horror, since this will cause darkness to cover the entire land. Also, this also causes his third eye to open up in this darkness, and a drop emerges which eventually becomes a baby. This baby, since it is born in the time of darkness, is blind, but is also blessed with the powers of Mahadev since it also is an ansh of Mahadev (just like Jalandhar and Hanuman). However, as Mahadev explains to Parvathi, this baby, born with powers but born in darkness, is different from Jalandhar in the sense that they share great ambition, but this baby does not have the values that Jalandhar had. The baby, known as Andhak, will have great ambition, and will also be totally evil, without any redeeming features (in contrast, Mahadev had thought that Jalandhar could be a good king and leader to his subjects, but has nothing but horror when looking at Andhak).
As a result, and because Mahadev knows that eventually the confrontation of Andhak will be with Adishakti in the future, Mahadev turns totally silent and tells Parvathi that he is going away from there to meditate, and more worryingly for everybody who believes that there will be good with the continues positive energies that come from Mahadev, he is withdrawing all his energies into himself. Parvathi sends Lord Brahma to try and get Mahadev back, but he tells Brahma that he also knows what all is going to happen, and hence he refuses to come back.
On a different note, Hanuman was trying to get lessons from the sun god, who was trying to run away, but finally is taught by the sun god, who then requests him to always take care of Sugriva. So they show Hanuman doing that, but refuses to help Sugriva when he tells Hanuman to attack Bali.

Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - Nobody can lift Shiv's bow at the Swayamvar

King Janak has announced the plan for the marriage of his daughter. He is holding a Swayamvar where any king who can pick up the heavy bow belonging to Mahadev and string it will be given his daughter in marriage. As expected, accepting such an invitation is a mark of pride for all kings, since all of them would want to display their pride and strength in front of other kings, and hence a number of kings from kingdoms all over India turn up. This also includes asura warriors. However, there are 2 exceptions shown in the serial - Ravana is not sent an invitation, and since Ram is not a king, but a prince, he is also not part of those participating. He infact is there as an observer, along with Lakshman, coming there with his guru, the sage Vishwamitra, to see the swayamvar.
Sita and Ram meet a couple of times in different circumstances, and the serial shows that they have an impact on each other, but each time Ram withdraws - he feels that he is a guest here, and it is not good manners for him to get acquainted in this manner with the princess, and also realizes that he is not going to be taking part in the Swayamvar.
And so the Swayamvar starts. Sita is unhappy to know that Ram is not there in the list of those who are taking part in the event. But over a period of time, all the proud kings who are sitting there on the thrones make their way to the huge bow, but are unable to make the slightest lift of it, what to talk of stringing it. When one of the mighty asura kings is not able to do so, some of the kings seated there decide to leave rather than suffer the embarrassment of showing themselves to be a failure in this event.
And then Ravana turns up. He criticizes the king for not inviting him to the event, especially because he was the greatest devotee of Mahadev and had even lifted the great Kailash mountain once, and also speaks a lot more in his pride about what he can do and so on. Everybody is looking on, since Ravana is shown to be somebody with a lot of pride and power both, and eventually when he tries to lift the bow, he is able to get it a few inches off the ground, but then fails.
At this, the king Janak criticizes everybody present, claiming that there is nobody present who has the pride to accomplish this task. This is like a red rag to Lakshman, who promptly gets up and says that this is an insult to his brother Ram, who is very much capable of doing tasks such as this, but he is not taking part in the event. Ravana even taunts Vishwamitra about how he is not taking care of the pride of his student Ram, since when he fails, it will be horrible for his pride. However, the sage claims that he is never wrong, and that Ram is very much capable of such a task. In the next episodes, the serial will show Ram indeed picking up the bow.

Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - The entry of Hanuman into the serial

The serial is currently showing the story of Lord Ram, as part of the quest to defeat Ravana and again establish the rule of the righteous in the land. The serial showed a number of episodes dedicated to the story of Ravana, who is all powerful, and ever since he got the feeling that Mahadev was cheating him by not going to Lanka with him, had got disillusioned with Mahadev and wanted to instead use his powers for increasing his prominence in the world. So, now whenever he meets Mahadev, he uses some sort of taunt or the other, while Mahadev is normally very patient with him. He had told him in the past to be a good ruler, and after that, as it kept turning out that Ravana was not listening to him, had finally told him that his end was near, that the human who would be responsible for killing him had come, and so on. Only one time had Mahadev got real angry at Ravana, at that time, Narayana and Brahma had to calm him down before he could directly kill Ravana.
So, finally the serial shows the story of Lord Rama, how he was born, and his life to the time that he is now a young adult, being provided guidance by Rishi Vishwamitra. Before the time comes for Ram and Lakshman to go back to their palace, they are taken by the Rishi to the hometown of Sita, where a swayamwar will be happening for her marriage. The quest in the contest is to pick up a bow that belongs to Mahadev, with the concept that nobody can pick up the bow except for Sita, and an avatar of Narayan. However, Ravana believes that since he is all powerful, and was even able to pick up Mount Kailash once, it would be easy for him to pick up the bow, and he will go and get Sita back as his wife. Mandodri and his grandfather both object to this, but he dismisses their objections, saying that as the ruler of Lanka, he will decide on what needs to be done. Also, he claims that doing this is necessary for the pride of Lanka, and his son also supports him in this.
On the other side, Goddess Parvathi along with her sons have gone to see Devi Anjani, the mother of Maruti, who is also born from a part of Mahadev, calling him a shivansh. Maruti is a very mischievous boy, who once even decided that the sun looked like a nice fruit that was worthy of eating and decided to go to the sun to swallow it; and as usual, Lord Indira sensed a challenge to him from somebody so young and struck him with a vajra before he could reach there. When Maruti comes back wounded to the earth and unconscious, his father, the wind god, says that he cannot take such an injustice and will stop blowing till justice is done to his son. The absence of wind will be a destroyer for every living thing, and they as usual show Indira pleading to Mahadev for rectification and forgiveness, and Mahadev gives back life to Maruti; and the various gods present there provide him a number of boons, many of which will be very useful to him. He will be very powerful, very learned, able to cross the largest ocean, not fearing death, and other such boons.

Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - The focus is on the story of Ram

For some time now, the story has been focusing on the oncoming story of Lord Ram. For some time now, Mahadev and Narayana both have been telling the story that the end of Ravana will come at the hands of a human, but that human will be special, being the epitome of maryada, dharma and everything that is good. He will be the person who will show a new character to the world, a person of incredible character and good, set an example to the world. This will be the incarnation of Lord Vishnu in the form of Ram. So there are a number of episodes that deal with this story, but the story still does not seem stretched, nor does it really feel that somebody is giving a moral lecture. So far the serial has managed to give a story that is not stretched.
Ravana is getting all powerful, comfortable in the knowledge that the gods and even the trimurti of Brahma, Narayanan and Mahadev cannot slay him because of the boon he has got from Brahma that prevents any of them from killing him. The boon however had a loophole, whereby Ravana considered humans so weak that he had not included humans in his boon, and hence Narayanan will take birth as a human to kill him. Ravana gets to know that a human is going to be born to kill him, and tries to find out from his grandfather about who is the person, but his grandfather only tells him that Queen Kaushalaya will be the mother of the child. Ravana tries to kill Kaushalya, but Lord Ganesh saves her from the water and puts her back near her palace.  And then Mahadev does a number of acts where he goes to the kings Dashratha (father of Ram) and Janak (future of Sita) and tells them that they will be graced with children who will be world famous and they will be fortunate to have such children. Janak is able to recognize that it is Mahadev who has come to offer him the advice and suggestions. In the case of Dashratha, Mahadev pays multiple visits, before the birth of Ram and then after the birth (he wanted to go this form of Narayanan where he was a baby and those were some cute scenes). King Dashratha does not recognize him but his guru is able to do so.
Then, in another scene, Mahadev again comes and warns Dashratha about his passion than become a compulsion, warning him against his quest for deer hunting (the king was very accomplished, just on the basis of his hearing, he could place an arrow inside the deer accurately). But the king does not listen to this stranger and goes hunting. And then he mistakenly understands the sound of Shravan filling his pot for that a deer who is drinking, and shoots Shravan in a life-threatening blow. The king is horrified that he has killed Shravan and goes before his blind parents, and tells them about what he has done. They refuse to forgive him, instead telling him that they are relinquishing their lives, but just as they are dying pining for their son, the same fate will come to King Dashrath. 

Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - Mahadev spares Ravan for now, after being reminded of fate

The serial is moving towards the end of a Yuga, with a new Yuga going to happen soon. The focus of the serial right now is on Ravana and his misdeeds. Inspite of having been warned by Mahadev to do good and not do adharma, Ravan is on the path of trying to fly higher and higher. He goes to a place for getting some new powers, and there he meets Mandodari and falls for he. He proposes marriage to her, and her father and she both are very happy at this, since Ravana is such a powerful and great man. However, Mandodari had a bit of a shock, she agreed so quickly to the marriage since she was a devotee of Mahadev, and she always thought Ravan was the greatest devotee of Mahadev, but Ravana breaks that thought of her and tells her that he is no longer a devotee of Mahadev.
Ravan is out on his pushpak viman, which crash lands at a place, and he soon sees this yogini called Vedvati, and seeing her beauty, he wants to possess her. She quickly gets to know his background and history on the basis of her powers and scolds him for coming after her even though he has just recently got married. However, he does not listen and touches her hand. In the meantime Mahadev gets up in anger since he can see what is happening, and on the other hand, Lakshmiji is very disturbed at what is happening to Vedvati although Vishnu tells her that she cannot stop what is happening.
Vedvati tells Ravana that because of his touching her, when she had not wished it, she was now impure and there was no other alternative for her than to seek death. Ravana is mystified, and then suddenly Mahadev appears there. He tries to stop Vedvati, but she tells him that this is now her fate, with her being the reason for the death of Ravana, and converts herself to a pile of ashes. Mahadev starts shaking with fury with Ravana getting scared, and is in the process of throwing his Tridev when Narayana comes there with the other trimuti and their consorts, and stops him from doing so, reminding him that Ravana is his gate-keeper and he cannot disturb fate.
All attempt to mollify Mahadev, and then he relates the story. At some time in the past, there were 2 people, Jay and Vijay, who had stopped Brahma's sons from visiting Narayan, and they were cursed for this. Vishnuji gave them 2 alternatives where they could either be with him for 7 births of being his bhakata and then would be sent to earth, or they could be killed by Narayana three times in 3 births, and so was the story of Hiranakashyap, then Narayanan followed by Shishupal. Finally Mahadev tells Parvathi that if he had indeed killed Ravana, then he would be disturbing fate.
Finally, the family splits from Kailash. Karthikeyan is to go south, Ganesh to go west, Parvathi to go east. Mahadev would be born in the form of Hanuman. Narayana tells them that once Mahadev and Parvathi step down from Kailash, there it would be Yugantar, the birth of a new age. And so it happens. But in the meantime, Ravana is trying to determine from his grandfather as to who would be responsible for his death, but all he can find out is that the mother of the person who would kill him is Kaushalya.

Hindi TV Serial - Devon Ke Dev Mahadev - Time for the marriage of the children

As usual, the serial tries to run 2 stories at the same time. One story continues to deal with the continuation of Ravan having broken off from his worship of Mahadev, angry over the fact that no matter what he did, Mahadev refused to come with him to Lanka. And even when Mahadev finally agreed to come to Lanka, Ravan was finally thwarted in his mission through the presence of Ganesh, who took over holding of the lingam from Ravan, and then put the lingam on the ground, because of which the mission to go to Lanka was again prevented. This finally made him angry, since he blamed Mahadev for what Ganesh had done, and realized that Mahadev had no intention to go to Lanka. He of course never stopped to think that it was his arrogance which wanted him to be proclaimed as the biggest devotee of Mahadev, and that he would be able to take Mahadev from his home in Mount Kailash to Lanka.
He decided to become a very strong ruler, no longer constrained by devotion of Mahadev, and decided to demolish the golden temple that he had first built for Mahadev, and wanted to construct a totally new magnificent city. He was also realized of the boon that he had got from Brahmaji did not cover humans (he did not believe that humans could ever cause him any worry or be a cause for his death), and decided to punish humans. First of all, he got a number of humans to work for him through a system of punishment, but then Mahadev came there to stop him from doing that. Ravan was defiant, since he claimed that the boon from Brahma would prevent him from being conquered; Mahadev told him that a human only would be the one to kill him. Finally, when the construction of his city was over, he decided to kill all the human workers, and this time Mahadev came in the form of a normal human (although with very strong capabilities) to give strength to the humans in terms of their fighting capabilities.
On the other side, both the sons, Ganesh and Karthikeyan had been gone for a long time, gone to get their education. Both Mahadev and Parvathi had missed them for a long time, but now finally they were on their way back to Kailash. Also, Mahadev had mentioned that there was a time for their marriage, and they were just wondering who would be ideal wives for them, when one of the prajapatis came along with his 2 daughters for the marriage. The girls had been rescued by Ganesh when they were heading to the ashram for their education, being threatened by an asura, who was challenged by Ganesh and then killed, although the asura claimed that he would be revenged by his brother.