Bade Ache Lagte Hain

Bade Ache  Lagte hain -yes I am talking about the Serial on Sony with Ram Kapoor and Sakshi Talwar. Isn’t the story about two  older people falling in love that too after marriage. yes it is! This time serial seems  different, you know zara hat ke. What can a serial that too from Ekta Kapoor Balaji production house tell us about money?

What is Bade Ache Lagte Hain?

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain is a TV serial on Sony Entertainment Television that started on 30th May, 2011. It airs every Monday to Thursday at 10:30 PM in India. Story of BadeAcche.. is based on the two strangers, Ram and Priya,  who get married and fall in love.  Both Ram and Priya are past their marriageable age. Ram is 40+ while Priya is 30+.

Priya is a simple girl, who teaches college students TOEFL , which her mother ex-Miss Bhubaneshwar calls  tuitions. Her younger sister, Aisha, is an aspiring model and the apple of her mother’s eye. There is a brother ,Kartik, too. Theirs is a well-to-do middle-class family. Priya is played by Sakshi Tanwar, the Parvati bhabhi of Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki !

Ram is a wealthy businessman. He lives with his stepmother, a stepbrother and two stepsisters. He buys everything money can for the happiness of his family but the mother uses him for her convenience and he’s bereft of maternal love. In his 40s, he is portly and single. He’s given up all the hopes of marriage though his best friend-cum-business associate is sure he will find the right girl if he looks hard enough. Ram Kapoor, of Kasam Se fame,  has plays the character of Ram.

Renuka Israni  does the loud, blasé Shipra Sharma with elan while Eva Grover plays the scheming stepmom.

What is it about Bade Acche Lagte Hain that appeals to viewers?

It is slowly climbing the Television Rating Point (TRP) charts. Let’s find out why:
“It’s a refreshing story. We have had enough of kitchen politics,” says Ratna Kulkarni, a housewife from Dadar.
“It’s interesting to watch two older people falling in love,” says Niharika Patel, a computer professional. “Why should serials only show two young people fall in love? We are happy to see something different,” she says.
“Ram Kapoor is so…o sweet and cute and fat-just like a big teddy bear. I watch serial just for him ,” says Kavita, a 30+ software engineer from Bangalore.
Ref:TimesofIndia

Other than Ram being wealthy what does BadeAche.. tell us about money(It highlights about getting married at the right age :-))

Money does not buy happiness

Loneliness: Ram Kapoor is rich, very rich. Infact he buys a failing company so that he can get the airplane of that company(The first episode). He buys anything that money can buy for his step family. But he is lonely.  When he talks about his loneliness outside the bathroom door of a restaurant(thinking he is talking to his friend’s wife but actually Priya is inside), a lot of women had tears in their eyes.

Ram’s sister Natasha has everything, comes from rich family, is a successful designer but when her boyfriend, Kartik( Priya’s brother) refuses to meet her, she slits her wrist and is rushed to hospital. Call it obsession or being stubborn but the bottom line is that money couldn’t get her boyfriend.

Wishes: Sickness does not see whether one is rich or poor. When Priya is diagnosed with signs of breast cancer, Ram feels so helpless. He promises Priya that he will fulfill her wishes for the next 7 days until biopsy reports come. And wishes of Priya were so simple:

• Counting stars(Ram takes Priya to the Beach to count the stars), (Episode 137, Feb 8 2012)
• Ram preparing pakode for Priya, Ram buying vegetables with Priya
• To be in two place at the same time  Ram takes Priya to border of Maharashtra and Gujrat. Priya’s one foot in Maharastra and one in Gujrat so her wish is fulfilled (Episode 139, )
• Learning salsa which Ram ends up doing even with sprain,(Episode 141, )

The love relationship  bloomed with the wish-lists realization and the distance brought by the ‘short’ US trip. Ram missed that flight because he wants to see Priya before leaving. Priya re-doing the room to give Ram a surprise, Ram shortening his trip.  The ways of expressing love are different( not everyone can reso room or afford to miss a flight) but if we look a little deeper -our wishes are small and all we want is being loved for what we are and shown that we are loved.

Jealousy: Money could not help Ram when he was bitten by Jealousy bug. Remember the episode (162, 5th Mar 2012) in which Ram is jealous that whole party Priya is only praising Actor Ronit Roy and his fitness, indirectly making fun of Ram. Slowly the heating argument turns worst as Ram tells Priya that if she likes Actor Ronit Roy so much then he will help her in arranging a beautiful candle light dinner and then book a suite too. Priya loosing her cool and declaring her love which leads to the (in)famous bedroom scenes.

Priya declaring her love for Ram

Young girls are ready to marry for money

20 somethings are ready to marry 40+, fat Ram because he is  rich. They think he is their ticket to bigger, expensive, branded things in life.
Remember the conversation that Priya has with her students when they talk about the magazine which has Ram on the front cover and Priya is tempted to  pick the magazine.
Or the episode in which Ram on insistence of his best friend meets a girl who is model. How the model tries to literally butter Ram and then runs off when Ram tells her he has no money!
Or how Priya’s younger sister, Aisha, agrees to marry Ram because for her buying a branded purse gives more happiness then talking about sunrise, sunset with a middle class husband. Her dialogues about the Sapnoon ka Rajkumar coming in white horse is all lies, makes us nod our heads in agreement. Her family agrees for the match “as they could not afford her dreams”

Playboy owner with his ex-fiancee

Around same time newspapers were buzzwith reports of 84 year old owner of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner worth $43 million,  marrying 24 yr old Crystal Harris. That’s not an age difference, but is several GENERATION  difference. When I read the news, I was seriously wondering why a 24 yr old would marry such an old man if not for his money. (On  June 15, 2011 Hugh Hefner confirmed on Twitter that his wedding was canceled because his fiancee had a change of heart.saying “the breakup is a heartbreaker, but better now than after the marriage.”).

Money makes one greedy

An employee of Ram, who was already married, agreed to marry Priya because of increment and promotion. He seems to be perfect guy, agreeing to let Priya have her identity. Thankfully Ram founds out at the right time else priya ki life barbaad ho jati! Or Priya’s ex fiancee.

Marriage means adjustment

Ram-Priya and Kartik-Natasha got married on the same day. Their love story is as different as their marriage. While Kartik-Natasha had love marriage and Ram-Priya had arranged marriage, it is adjustment for both couples especially Priya and Natasha. Priya is confused by the options of even a simple thing as tea, Natasha can’t seem to adjust to the middle class family values and lack of things.

Did you know that Renuka Israni , who plays Priya’s mom, acted as Usha Rani, Lalloo’s wife in HumLog a very popular serial  of 1980’s.

Cast of Bade Acche Lagte Hain

Important characters of RABH are given below. Image courtsy :India Forum:Cast of Bade Acche Lagte Hain. Click on images below to find more about the cast.

Ram Kapoor as Ram Kapoor	Saakshi Tanwar as Priya Ram Kapoor	Mohit Malhotra as Karthik Sharma	Sumona Chakravarti as Natasha Sharma	Eva Grover as Niharika Kapoor
Tarana Raja Kapoor as Neha Shergill	Jai Kalra as Vikram Shergill	Prithvi as Sudhir Sharma	Renuka Israni as Shipra Sharma	Chahatt Khanna as Ayesha Sharma
Mahesh Shetty as Siddhanth Kapoor	Rajinder Kaur Manchanda as Daadi	Deepak Qazir Kejriwal as Mamaji or Raghav Sahay	Parakh Madan as Harry	Kajal Pisal as Ishikaa Kapoor

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Will Raam and Priya separate? Will Kartick come out of jail? All the answers to above questions will form the further story of bade acche lagte hai.

These are money lessons that I can think of. Bade Ache Lagte hain. Can you think of other money lessons from Bade…

If you miss the serial then you can catch it at myeduniya.com
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Bade Ache Lagte hai..yeh dharti, yeh raina aur …what a great song.Enjoy the video of the original song starring Sachin and Rajini Sharma from movie Balika Vadhu.(One of my favorites)