Tu Sooraj Main Saanjh, Piyaji


Tu Sooraj Main Saanjh, Piyaji is an Indian television soap opera that aired on Star Plus. Produced by Shashi Sumeet Productions, the series starred Rhea Sharma and Avinesh Rekhi. It is the sequel to Diya Aur Baati Hum.
Neelu Vaghela, Ashok Lokhande, Kanika Maheshwari, Urmila Sharma and Rishina Kandhari reprised their roles from Diya Aur Baati Hum. The series premiered on 3 April 2017 and ended on 1 June 2018 as it could not deliver the expected ratings.
It was originally broadcast in the afternoon during the network's Star Dopaher programming block. On 24 July 2017, the series was moved to prime time replacing Saath Nibhaana Saathiya.

Plot

The series takes place twenty years after the events in Diya Aur Baati Hum and it revolves around the children of Sooraj and Sandhya, mainly focusing on their daughter, Kanak. Her grandmother, Santosh who initially hates her, thinking her to be the reason behind her parents' death, later accepts her upon realising her love for Kanak. Kanak's life takes a new turn when Uma Shankar Toshniwal, a rich, kind-hearted but superstitious man and an Ayurveda doctor by profession, forcefully marries her, believing that as a sign from Lord Shiva.
Uma is a blind believer in morals taught by his greedy and hypocrite maternal aunt. Kanak sets off on a journey with Uma to teach him the greatest moral of life – humanity – while she is criticized by Palomi and repeatedly harmed by Nanda and later, her lewd son Aditya. In the process, Kanak falls in love with Uma after establishing herself as the perfect wife for him. Soon, Uma and Kanak expose Nanda and Aditya.
Soon, Uma, for some unknown reason, marries Meera Mittal, the deranged daughter of a rich businessman, ditching Kanak.

Two years later

Kanak is now self-sufficient and possessing a bitter hatred towards Uma, eventually reappears in his life, who has become a successful business tycoon running the 'K & U' company in the meantime. It is revealed later on that Uma still loves Kanak and was actually blackmailed and forced into marrying Meera to save his younger cousin Suman from receiving punishment for a murder she had inadvertently committed. Meera upon knowing Kanak's identity, alongside with Aditya tries many heinous ways to separate the duo, including an unsuccessful attempt to marry off Kanak to Akshay also was hell-bent on ruining her. Suman is now full of guilt and decides to sacrifice her life so that Uma and Kanak can re-unite. They manage to save her and the truth is finally unveiled before Kanak. She gets rid of her ill-feelings towards Uma and gets Meera arrested with the help of others by hatching a crafty plan. Aditya realises his mistake and has a change of heart, becoming loyal to his brother. Kanak and Uma settle their differences and restore their relationship. It is then that Nanda comes out of jail.
After Saras suffering an unfortunate miscarriage on account of failing to reach the medical facility on time, and seeing Uma's grief over the matter, Kanak and Aditya launch a bike ambulance service. This creates a number of enemies for Uma and Kanak from the very outset, and Dr. Parag, the corrupt Dean of Pratistha Medical College, joins hands with Nanda to cancel Uma's license so that he can use the idea to promote his own medical college and take the credit totally upon himself. Kanak decides to study paramedics and become a doctor herself to save the license from being cancelled and so that no one can label her as an amateur when she treats patients. After facing numerous hurdles and hindrances in Dr. Parag's college set by the Dean himself in order to crush her dream, she finally succeeds in revealing Dr. Parag's true nature in front of the public and manages to get him behind bars. It is revealed at this point that Nanda was ill-treated by Dr. Parag while in jail, and she was planning for revenge ever since she got out of jail. She afterwards stops plotting against Uma and Kanak.
Uma at this time receives a fake call and is attacked by goons, who also trash his bike ambulance. He recovers a few months later, but loses his memory; to everyone's surprise, he turns into the same superstitious person he was before. He urges Kanak to either choose him or pursue her paramedics course. Kanak ultimately chooses to continue her dream of becoming a doctor. Uma supports her decision, and Aditya then reveals that it was Uma's plan all along to infuse some confidence and passion into Kanak, which she was lacking hitherto, and also that he had never lost his memory. With this, the story finally ends on a happy note as Kanak sets off for her new career with the blessings of all the elders.

Cast

Main

Production

This sequel of Diya Aur Baati Hum was planned before it going off air itself. Actress Neelu Vaghela playing Santosh revealed the title of the series in February 2017 as Tu Sooraj Main Saanjh, Piyaji. The title of the series was taken from the title track of Diya Aur Baati Hum.
The series began with a leap of 20 years in its storyline from Diya Aur Baati Hum focusing on Sandhya and Sooraj's children, mainly Kanak after their death.
This series was launched originally during Star Plus afternoon slot named Star Plus Dopahar Block along with three other series, aiming at retrieving the afternoon programming of the channel. Soon, in June 2017, this series among the others was moved to the prime time replacing Saath Nibhana Saathiya as the makers and the channel felt that it could reach a larger audience and also it being a sequel to one of the popular show Diya Aur Baati Hum.
Playback singer Palak Muchhal was roped to sing for the title track of the series.
Singers Amit Trivedi and Shreya Ghoshal collaborated for the title track of the series.

Filming

Some of the initial scenes were shot in Kerala and Jaipur, Rajasthan. In January 2018, the sequence of Kanak and Uma searching for Palomi was shot in Thailand.

Casting

, Ashok Lokhande, Kanika Maheshwari, Urmila Sharma and Rishina Kandhari reprised their roles from Diya Aur Baati Hum. Rajeev Singh was roped for the role of Vikram Rathi which was played by Karan Goddwani in the former series.
Avinesh Rekhi was roped for the role of Uma Shankar. Rhea Sharma was roped for the lead role of Kanak. Besides Mayank Arora, Kabeer Kumar, Uday Nene, Sheetal Pandey, Sheefali Singh Soni, Sadiya Siddiqui, Madhura Naik, Mazel Vyas and Swathi Kapoor were cast then.
In November 2017, Kanika Maheshwari quit. In February 2018, Kangana Sharma was roped for the role of Meera Mittal, making her television debut. Soon, in March 2018, Ankit Bhatla was cast as Akshay.

Remakes

It has been remade in Telugu as Agni sakshi which premiered on Star Maa on 4 December 2017.
The series has been remade in Bengali as Ardhangini, which premiered on Star Jalsha on 8 January 2018.
In Kannada, it has been remade as Sarvamangala Mangalye, which premiered on Star Suvarna on 30 July 2018.
It is remade in Tamil as Siva Manasula Sakthi on Star Vijay which premiered on 21 January 2019.