ELDG-arch1I rarely identify with serials and film romances – they are great to watch but they don’t often translate into real life especially if you are as practical as I’ve been in life. Don’t get me wrong – I fell in love and got married that too quite early – a shock that my family and friends have never been able to overcome till this day.

In June last year I chanced upon this Marathi Serial “Eka Lagnachi Dusri Goshta” – thanks to my mumma and MIL pestering me to watch it. I cannot watch daily soaps or serials – my job does not give me the luxury to follow serials regularly at a particular time. I tend to catch up with my favourites on the weekend at one go and I prefer that.

I finally caved in to my mumma’s and MIL’s wishes and went hunting on youtube to catch this serial from the start and I did not realise when I fell in love with it – more importantly how much I fell in love with all the characters.

Middle-class Marathi families, one of them a joint family. The girl – independent , rebellious yet loving and respectful to her elders, only child of a single parent. The guy – the most loved by his family and especially his mum. He is loving, caring, respectful – always giving his family importance over his wishes. The parents and relatives of both central characters – the chirpy, mischievous grand mom, the younger siblings, the funny uncles, the inquisitive aunts – it felt like they picked bits from my life and put it in there.

Have you ever had a deja-vu in your life? I did, umpteen times when I watched this serial – especially the interactions between Ghana and Radha. Their silly obsessions, their stupid fights, their endless arguments and their expressions of love.  I was a bit shocked as to how the dialogues seemed to be verbatim copy of the conversations between MDH and me when we fell in love and of our married life that followed (of course my love story has got no relation to the plot of the serial);  no wonder my mother and MIL insisted that I watch the serial.

Mukta Barve is one of my favourite Marathi actresses and no one I know could’ve have portrayed the simple, lovely, strong and later confused Radha so beautifully as she did.  I was not a huge Swapnil Joshi fan but his performance as the innocent, sensitive, emotional Ghanashyam a.k.a Ghana in this serial stole my heart.  Ila Bhate as Radha’s MIL was an exact replica of my MIL – in everything – looks wise and nature-wise; I could not stop smiling watching scenes that involved her and her son. The rest of the cast is also stellar with some fine names like Vinay Apte, Sukanya Kulkarni, Mohan Joshi, Vivek Lagu, Spruha Joshi, Umesh Kamat, Girish Joshi, Asawari Joshi.

The serial was directed by Satish Rajwade – one of the finest directors in the Marathi fraternity today – his earlier works include the famous TV serials Asambhav, Agnihotra, and the film Mumbai Pune Mumbai.

I’ve been meaning to write about this serial for a long time now but never got around to do it. The reason I’m posting about it today is that Zee Marathi is doing a “cinematic version” of this serial for its fans tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. IST. If you don’t have the patience to play catch up with 190 episodes of this serial I suggest you don’t miss out on tomorrow’s telecast.

There are no large mansions, no jazzy cars, no heavily decked daughters in laws, no wicked plots, no vamps, and no unnecessary villains and definitely no over the top acting. It is about our lives portrayed to perfection. It is about love and friendship and relationships. Relationships that matter, relationships that bind us together, relationships that are important in this world and we seem to lose track of them. In a world where joint families are a disappearing phenomenon, it shows how we can still continue to have them without the fights and nasty bickering.

It is just a simple tale told about simple folks – like you and me. I can’t thank Satish Rajwade and his team enough for bringing our lives to the small screen and changing my opinion – Eka Lagnachi Dusri Goshta made me believe that screen romances do translate to real life and vice versa!

Go watch this serial tomorrow and let me know what you think of it. Until then let me leave you with this lovely track composed by Nilesh Mohrir “Tujhya Vina” from the serial