Feb 13, 2008 02:27 PM
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I am not an Indian soap opera buff but somehow, Virrudh, succeeded in impressing me with his first promos (aired on TV before serial started). Also, it had Sushant Singh, one of my favourite actors. So I decided that I shall watch this serial. And I was really impressed by it in the beginning. But like every other serial, this serial too, went to some disappointing lanes.
Virrudh began on March 26, 2007 on Sony TV and it was aired from Monday to Thursday at 9:30 PM. Later its timings were changed to 10:00 PM. The show ended on January 17, 2008
The serial ‘Virrudh’ revolved around the following characters:
1. Dhirendra Rai Singhania aka DRS (played by Vikram Gokhale): He is the head of the Rai Singhania family. He is the owner of a popular Hindi newspaper ‘Dainik Darpan’. He is selfish, corrupt, and arrogant and can use anyone to achieve his selfish ends.
2. Vasudha (Smriti Irani): She is the step daughter of DRS and the eldest of all the offspring’s of DRS. She takes active interest in her dad’s business. Her only problem-he has held her father as God and is ignorant about how corrupt her dad is.
3. Sushant (Sushant Singh): Sushant works as a senior reporter in Dainik Darpan. He is non-corrupt and wants to convey and expose the truth, through his writings. He is the opposite of DRS and both hate each other. And he loves Vasudha, who equally loves her.
4. Vedika (Achnit Kaur): Alcoholic daughter of DRS who hates her father, due to past experiences. She knew all about her father’s corruption and crimes.
5. Vedant (Karan Mehra): The only son of DRS. Loves Vasudha a lot and is her favourite too.
6. Shreya (Mihika Verma): The youngest daughter of DRS. She is her father’s favourite. She is silly, irresponsible, and immature. Taking advantage of this, Siddharth traps her and makes her fall in love with her.
7. Siddharth (sorry, can’t find his name): A spoilt guy who wants to be rich and therefore, traps Shreya into marrying her. He already has a wife, Naina Chopra.
8. Naina/Natasha (Aashka Goradia): The first wife of Siddharth. She loved her but later became against her when he started using Shreya in order to become rich.
9. Vikram Agarkar (Anoop Soni): An honest cop who enters the show when someone attemped to murder DRS by firing at him. While investigating, he comes across Vedika and both fall for each other.
10. Pariva Pranati (Sandhya): A poor girl. Vedant falls in love with her and marries her. But then he comes to know that she had a brain tumour and is not gonna live for more than 6 months.
Other characters:
1. Pandeyji (Aadesh Shrivastava): One of the oldest member of the Dainik Darpan staff
2. Shalini (Zarina Wahab): Vasudha’s mother who was raped by DRS
3. Virendra Rai Singhania (Mohan Bhandari): Younger brother of DRS, whose ultimate aim of life is to take over business of DRS.
4. Sinha (Govind Namdeo): A corrupt politician who has been a friend of DRS since more than 30 years. But now, he has become his foe
5. Rudraksh (Chetan Hansraj): Virendra’s son who is willing to help his dad in his aim. It was he who instructed Siddharth to enter into Shreya’s life.
6. Uttara Devi (Apara Mehta): Sushant’s mother who knows Shalini since a long time
Virrudh was not like the typical saas-bahu serials and therefore, it provided a great change. The serial’s basic concept was as the title suggested is “Opposition”. And the serial remained stuck to the concept till the end. The characters of the serial were wonderful and quite interesting. Even the DRS’s residential mansion was excellent and after watching a serial since a long time, I felt a desire to stay in that house!! The twists in the story were very nice and some were highly unpredictable. Some of the interesting sequences in the serial were:
1. Uttara meeting DRS
2. Vedika comes to know that her dad had raped Shalini on the day of Sushant and Vasudha’s engagement
3. Attempt to murder on Sushant
4. Shalini trying to stab DRS but missing her target and by mistake, hit Vasudha
5. Split of Sushant and Vasudha
6. Attempt to murder on DRS
7. A godman telling DRS that he is going to die in the next 7 days
8. Murder of DRS, by her own daughter Shreya (who was hypnotized at that time by Siddharth)
9. DRS telling Vasudha just before his death to promise him that no one should come to know that Shreya murdered him
10. Vikram telling Vasudha to marry him
- Shreya and Naina murdering Siddharth
Like other serials, in Virrudh too, some actors walked out of the show due to some reasons. But the makers of Virrudh didn’t replace any other actor in its place. Instead they simply deleted that character, and some characters were erased abruptly. For instance, Apara Mehta’s character was ended abruptly but later she came again. When Pariya Pranati (Shreya) joined a new serial, Tujhko Hai Salaam Zindagi, her character was showing having a fatal brain disease and ended her role.
The major advantage of Virrudh is that it ended in less than a year. Like other ‘K’ serials, it didn’t kept on dragging for years and years. One reason for the end of the show was the low TRPs. But seriously speaking, it’s better for a serial to have low TRPs and end fast than to have higher TRPs and drag it for 7-8 years.
However, Virrudh was not devoid of flaws. The story went off-track, at many times. In November, the director was changed from Santram Verma to Rahul Mewavala. Rahul Mewavala, at first, was not able to do justice to the story. Also one didn’t come to know answers to many unanswered questions even after the show ended. For instance, no one knew who tried to murder DRS. DRS had told that it was Shalini who shot at him but he may had lied. Also the deletion of interesting character, Sinha, proved heavy for the serial.
Now for the performances! Each actor in the serial gave a bravura performance. Vikram Gokhale was perfect in the role of DRS. He wonderfully depicted the character. His best scene in my opinion-DRS looking proudly and smiling after overcoming from paralysis, coupled with a powerful background noise.
Smriti Irani perfectly played the role of Vasudha. She successfully managed to break away from the legendary character ‘Tulsi’ and managed to give a good performance. She was also the co-producer of the show.
Sushant Singh was the hero of the serial and the best of all! Due to his fine acting and excellent personality, he did complete justice to the role of Sushant. Wonderful!
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