Balika Vadhu
Balika Vadhu is an Indian soap opera that aired on Colors TV. It aired between 21 July 2008 and 31 July 2016 with 2,245 episodes. The story which is set in rural Rajasthan revolved around the life of a child bride from childhood to womanhood. The first season focused on Anandi and Jagdish, who were married in childhood. The second season reflects the lives of Anandi's daughter Dr. Nandini who was also a child bride.
It has been credited as the first Indian fiction show to complete 2,000 episodes.
The show had two seasons titled Balika Vadhu—Kacchi Umar Ke Pakke Rishte and Balika Vadhu—Lamhe Pyaar Ke.
Series overview
Balika Vadhu: Kacchi Umar Ke Pakke Rishte
It traces two young children, Anandi and Jagdish, who get married in childhood. The 8 year-old Anandi faces difficulties to accept and accustom herself to a new family of strangers as well as her roles as a friend, lover, wife and daughter-in-law during childhood.Some years later
Anandi and Jagdish have grown up. She is in love with him. Jagdish goes to Mumbai for his college education. In meantime, he falls in love with his colleague Gauri. Jagdish marries Gauri thinking that his marriage with Anandi was not valid as they were married in childhood, and he comes back home with Gauri where whole family refuses to accept their marriage except Anandi. Bhairav asks Anandi to file case against Jagdish by claiming that she is his legally wedded wife as according to the law if you are married in childhood and continue your marriage even after teenage then your marriage is considered legal. But Anandi refuses to do so and allow Jagdish to live with Gauri by thinking marriage should be believed by heart not forcefully. One day Anandi decides to move on by giving divorce to Jagdish, soon she sends divorce papers to Jagdish which makes Jagdish furious and he asks for his share in property in spite the divorce because of Gauri's attempt of brainwashing him. But Anandi refuses to do so by saying if he will not divorce her with out asking any share then she will file complain against him for illegally marrying Gauri. By hearing this Gauri steps back and asks him to sign the divorce papers without asking for anything.Because of the rejection from her in-laws, Gauri becomes vengeful towards them creating problems in her marital life with Jagdish. Anandi faces new challenges trying to carve her identity out in the world. She starts an NGO to educate girls, fights against child marriage, becomes the "Sarpanch Bitiya" of Jaitsar and meets district collector Shivraj Shekhar, who is impressed with her.
Jagdish's family wants Anandi to marry Shivraj. Jagdish divorces Gauri and realizes his mistakes, vowing to unite with Anandi, but is shocked learning about her wedding. Anandi marries Shivraj and forgives Jagdish but they remain good friends.
Jagdish meets Ganga, another victim of child marriage and domestic violence and helps her in fulfilling her dream of being educated. Eventually, Ganga becomes a nurse and Jagdish marries her having fallen for her and accepts her son Mahendra. She later gives birth to their own son Abhimanyu.
Anandi and Shivraj adopt an orphan named Amol who suffers from osteoarthritis giving him love and affection. Basant meets with an accident and dies. Shivraj and Anandi help Amol regain his ability to walk. Amol is found by his real parents who had never abandoned him but lost him thinking he was dead and take him to Dubai.
Shivraj dies while trying to save Udaipur from a terrorist attack. Shortly after his death, Anandi gives birth to their children, Nandini and Shivam, but Akhiraj Singh kidnaps Nandini who is renamed Nimboli and made a slave by marrying his son Kundan as he wants to avenge Anandi for preventing Kundan's wedding with a child bride.
Eleven years later
Nandini faces hardships of child marriage and domestic violence. Kundan is cruel towards her and grows up as a result of the wrong precedent set by the society around him. Anandi and Jagdish are searching for Nandini. Jagdish finally finds Nandini and reunites her with Anandi.Akhiraj is arrested but manages to escape from jail to avenge Anandi. He tries to kill Anandi, Jagdish, Nandini and Shivam but fails and then kidnaps Ganga, wanting to exchange her life for those of Jagdish, Anandi, Nandini and Kalyani in the first place.
Akhiraj succeeds in killing Anandi who protects Nandini and Shivam. In the ensuing action, Jagdish shoots Akhiraj to death. Nandini and Shivam fall into a river together with Anandi elsewhere Jagdish and Ganga presume them dead.
Balika Vadhu: Lamhe Pyaar Ke
Fifteen years later
Nandini has become a physician after Anandi's death and was adopted by a man named Naren Shekhawat, who raised her. She recalls her past where she and Shivam were put in orphanage; few days later, Shivam was arrested for murdering a man who was trying to rape Nandini and hence they got separated.Nandini made a promise to the deceasing Anandi that she would fulfill her wish about opening medical treatments in every corner of Rajasthan and name it as Anandi Memorial. She gets a great support by her mentor and another physician Amit Goel, who later falls in love with her.
Shivam, now a gangster is mad because Nandini asked him to leave after the rape at orphanage. Nandini meets medical student Krish Malhotra. They fall in love and marry. Nandini finds out that Krish's stepfather is actually Kundan and the groom she chose for Naren's daughter Sudha is actually Shivam.
Nandini reunites with Shivam. The police kills Kundan after he kidnaps Nandini to forcefully remarry her while threatening Sudha's life and good prevails evil. In the epilogue, Nandini summarizes the whole story through her Anandi's childhood to her present and writes it down in a book named Balika Vadhu.
Cast
Balika Vadhu: Kacchi Umar Ke Pakke Rishte
Main
- Sidharth Shukla as Shivraj Alok Shekhar
- Pratyusha Banerjee/Toral Rasputra as Anandi Shivraj Shekhar
- Shashank Vyas/Shakti Anand as Dr. Jagdish "Jagya" Singh/ Jagat
- Avika Gor as young Anandi J. Singh / Anandi Khajaan Singh
- Avinash Mukherjee as young Jagdish "Jagya" Singh
- Surekha Sikri as Kalyani Devi Dharamveer Singh
- Anup Soni as Bhairon Dharamveer Singh
- Smita Bansal as Sumitra Bhairon Singh
Recurring
- Satyajit Sharma as Basant Dharamveer Singh/Basant Mahaveer Singh
- Roop Durgapal as Sanchi Alok Shekhar/Sanchi Vivek Kabra
- Roshni Walia as young Ganga Ratan Singh
- Sriti Jha/Sargun Mehta/Aasiya Kazi Dr. Ganga Jagdish Singh
- Gracy Goswami as young Nandini Shivraj Shekhar/Nimboli Kundan Singh
- Anjum Farooki/Deblina Chatterjee as Gauri Jagdish Singh / Gauri Singh /
- Mahima Makwana as young Gauri
- Neha Marda/Sheetal Khandal as Gehna Niranjan Singh / Gehna Basant Singh
- Sanjay Basak as Nandkishore Basant Singh/Nandu
- Viren Vazirani as Young Shivam Shivraj Shekhar
- Sunil Singh as Akhiraj Singh
- Rudrakshi Gupta as Harki Singh
- Sparsh Shrivastav/Karan Pahwa as young Kundan Akhiraj Singh
- Tisha Kapoor as Urmila Kundan Singh
- Sudhir Pandey as Premkishore Shekhar
- Sushmita Mukherjee as Subhadra
- Gaurav Bajaj as Hardik
- Nidhi Jha/Sonam Lamba as Gulli
- Jayneeraj Rajpurohit as Alok Premkishore Shekhar
- Sonal Jha as Iravati Shekhar
- Anita Kulkarni as Meenakshi Anoop Shekhar
- Avinash Wadhawan/Akshay Anand as Anoop Premkishore Shekhar
- Shbuham Jha as Amol Shivraj Shekhar
- Mohit Abrol as Anuj
- Vimarsh Roshan as Advocate Vivek Roshan Kabra
- Sonal Handa as Saurabh Kabra
- Bobby Parvez as Roshan Kabra
- Shalini Arora as Suman Roshan Kabra
- Farhina Parvez as Rakhi Kabra
- Abhishek Tiwari as Mahi Anoop Shekhar
- Reena Aggarwal as Ashima
- Chandresh Singh as Ratan Singh
- Vibha Anand/Janvi Chheda as Sugna Bhairon Singh/Sugna Shyam Singh
- Vikrant Massey/Sachin Shroff as Shyam Madan Singh
- Shivansh Kotia as Varun Shyam Singh
- Amar Sharma as Madan Singh
- Abhijit Lahiri as Ramcharan Singh
- Asmita Sharma as Radha Madan Singh
- Neha Gosain as Asha Abhishek Singh
- Ankit Gupta as Abhishek Singh
- Rajeshwari Sachdev as Mangala Devi Singh/Disa
- Farah Hussain as Kamli Akhiraj Singh/Kamli Pushkar Singh
- Rishi Dev as Gopal
- Rajendra Gupta as Mahaveer Singh
- Parichay Sharma as Pushkar Jata Shankar Singh
- Hiten Tejwani as Dr. Anant
- Chetanya Adib as Khajaan Singh
- Bhairavi Raichura as Bhagwati Khajaan Singh
- Farida Jalal as Vasundhara Devi/Badi Jiji/Badi Mausi Ji
- Faiza Faiz/Mamta Chaturya as Phooli Jagan Singh
- Arpit Joshi as Lal Singh
- Farnaz Shetty as Kanchan
- Nivedita Bhattacharya as Shivani Rajadhyaksha
- Harsh Chhaya as Palash Scindia
- Kamalika Guha Thakurta as Pramila
- Sadiya Siddiqui as Sandhya/Teacher Ji
- Sakshi Tanwar as Teepri
- Jehangir Vakil as Pratap
- Shivshakti Sachdev as Champa
- Geeta Tyagi as Jamuna Basant Singh
- Karmveer Choudhary as Sambhu Singh
- Rahoul Lohani as Niranjan Singh
- Geetanjali Mishra as Sona/Kusum
- Simran Natekar as Pooja
- Harsh Mehta as Mahendra Ratan Singh/Mahendra Jagdish Singh/Mannu
Balika Vadhu: Lamhe Pyaar Ke
- Mahhi Vij as Dr. Nandini Shivraj Shekhar/Nandini Krish Malhotra
- Ruslaan Mumtaz as Krish Malhotra
- Vineet Kumar Chaudhary as Kundan Akhiraj Singh/Abhayram
- Dishank Arora as Shivam Shivraj Shekhar/Shankar Singh
- Yukti Kapoor as Sudha Naren Shekhawat/Sudha Premal Singh
- Sonia Shah as Karuna Malhotra
- Nimisha Vakharia as Triveni
- Avinash Sachdev as Dr. Amit Naresh Goel
- Smriti Khanna as Dr. Vandana Mittal
- Shahab Khan as Naren Shekhawat
- Neetu Pandey as Jamuna Naren Shekhawat
- Ayush Anand as Premal Singh
- Hetal Yadav as Mrs. Pavitra Singh
- Prithvi Sankhala as Dr. Naresh Goel
Crossover episodes
- Sasural Simar Ka
- Udaan
Trishakti
Trishakti episodes
Distribution
Dubbed versions and remakes
A dubbed version of the serial is telecast in Tamil language as Mann Vasanai on Raj TV.A dubbed version of the serial is telecast in Telugu language as Chinnari Pellikuthuru on MAA TV.A dubbed version of the serial is telecast in Malayalam language as Balika Vadhu on Surya TV.
It is remade in Kannada Language as Putta Gowri Maduve on Colors Kannada.
International broadcast
- In Turkey, it began airing on Kanal 7 from Sept 2018 everyday at 16:10 under the title Ikimizin Yerine.
- In Nepal, it began airing from 2018 on DH Ramailo TV under the title; Aanandi. It broadcast every Monday to Friday at 8:30 PM NST, but after 17 August 2018 it was broadcast at 9:00 PM.
- In Croatia, it began airing on Doma TV from Monday to Friday at 8:10 am under the title Mala nevjesta.
- In Bulgaria, it began airing on Nova TV from Monday to Friday at 4:30 pm under the title Малката булка.
- In Romania, it began airing on National TV under the title Mica mireasă.
- In Serbia, it began airing on RTV Pink from Monday to Friday at 4 pm under the title Mala nevesta.
- In Bosnia and Herzegovina, it aired on Pink BH under the title Mala nevjesta.
- In North Macedonia, it aired on Sitel TV under the title Малечката невеста.
- In Montenegro, it began airing on Pink M under the title Mala nevjesta.
- In Indonesia, it began airing on ANTV from 15 March 2016 under the title Anandhi but was airing from Monday to Friday at 4 pm and Saturday to Sunday at 4:30 pm.
- In Kyrgyzstan, it began airing on KTRK under the title Келин.
- In Kazakhstan, it airs under the title Келін and broadcast on TV channel, Kazakhstan.
- In Vietnam, the drama began airing under the title Cô Dâu 8 Tuổi on :vi:TodayTV|TodayTV from 11 November 2014 and ended on 11 February 2017. The drama has enjoyed immense popularity in Vietnam and during its run had been the number one show in the country since its premiere. The show's popularity resulted in the show's actress, Avika Gor, receiving an award from the channel head of TodayTV. Gor also visited Vietnam on a two-day trip to the country due to the success of the show; other cast members including Avinash Mukherjee and Smita Bansal also visited the country. The show was the ninth most searched item in 2015 in Vietnam on Google as confirmed by the annual Google Trends end-of-year report. The popularity of Balika Vadhu is part of a wider interest in Asian dramas in Vietnam, which experts say have a "cultural edge over their Western counterparts" due to cultural similarities that are found in soap operas imported from South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.
- In Sri Lanka, it began airing on TV 1 from Monday to Friday at 7 pm on 15 August 2016 under the title Punchi Manaali.
- In Lithuania, the drama began airing under the title "Pažadėtoji" on TV3 Lietuva in 28 December 2016. The drama started show after finishing other Indian drama Sapna Babul Ka...Bidaai . The drama show from Monday to Friday 1:00 pm and 3 pm.
- In the UK, The series is translated into English as Child Bride and airs on Colors TV and Rishtey.
- In South Africa, the series is dubbed in English is called Young Love and airs on Glow TV.
- In Armenia, On Shant TV the series began in 2017 and is dubbed in Armenian: Հարսիկը .
- In Azerbaijan On Dalga TV Balika Vadhu.On Name Small Bride
- In Japan On Nittele Plus & LaLa TV, the series is dubbed in Japan is called "子供の花嫁"
- In South Korea On DRAMACube and BtvN, the series is dubbed in South Korea is called "아이 신부"
- In Thailand, it began airing on 5 HD1 from 2 January 2019 - 2019 Every Monday to Friday at 14:05 - 15:00 under the title นันทินี ม่านรัก ม่านประเพณี.
''Chhoti Anandi''
Awards
WinnerYear | Award | Category | Recipient |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Drama Series | Sphere Origins |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Director | Siddharth Sen Gupta Pradeep Yadav |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress Drama Series | Avika Gor |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Sadiya Siddiqui |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress in a Negative Role | Surekha Sikri |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Child Artist | Avika Gor |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Title Track | Lalit Sen |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Teleplay | Purnendu Shekhar Rajesh Duby Gajra Kotheri |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Dialogue | Raghuver Shekhawat |
2008 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Videography | Sanjay Memane |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Drama Series | Sphere Origins |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Director | Siddharth Sen Gupta Pradeep Yadav |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Smita Bansal |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress in a Negative Role | Surekha Sikri |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Child Artist | Avika Gor |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Dialogue | Usha Dixit |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Teleplay | Purnendu Shekhar Rajesh Duby Gajra Kotheri |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Title Track | Lalit Sen |
2009 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Videography | Sanjay Memane Anil Katke |
2010 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress Drama | Surekha Sikri |
2010 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Child Artist | Avika Gor |
2010 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Dialogue | Usha Dixit |
2010 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Teleplay | Raghuvir Shekhawat Rajesh Duby Gajra Kotheri |
2010 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Costume Designer | Winnie Malhotra Neelu Shroff |
2011 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress Drama | Surekha Sikri |
2011 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Anup Soni |
2012 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Title Track | Lalit Sen |
2012 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Costume Designer | Winnie Malhotra Neelu Shroff |
2012 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Dialogue | Usha Dixit |
2012 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Videography | Sanjay Memane |
2013 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Gr8! Performer of the Year | Sidharth Shukla |
2014 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Actress Drama | Surekha Sikri |
2014 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Best Story | Purnendu Shekhar Gajra Kotheri |
2015 | Indian Television Academy Awards | Special Recognition | Aasiya Kazi, Gracy Goswami Siddharth Sen Gupta |
2008 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Child Artist | Avika Gor |
2008 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting role | Smita Bansal |
2008 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actress in a Negative Role | Surekha Sikri |
2008 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Fresh New Face | Avika Gor |
2008 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Programming on Social Issue | Sphere Origins |
2009 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Popular Drama Series | Sphere Origins |
2009 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Child Artist | Avinash Mukherjee |
2009 | Indian Telly Awards | Avika Gor | - |
2009 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Anup Soni |
2009 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Title Track | Lalit Sen |
2010 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Title Track | Lalit Sen |
2010 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actress Drama Series | Avika Gor |
2010 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Anup Soni Satyajit Sharma |
2012 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Anup Soni |
2012 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Surekha Sikri |
2012 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Drama Series | Sphere Origins |
2013 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Actress | Surekha Sikri |
2014 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Story | Purnendu Shekhar Gajra Kotheri |
2014 | Indian Telly Awards | Best Continuing TV Programme | Sphere Origins |
2014 | - | - | - |