Piya Albela Review: A well-crafted tale of love and spirituality

Zee’s Piya Albela takes the viewers through an interesting story based on the classic love tale of Menka and Vishwamitra. The lead characters Naren and Pooja are very much different. Naren walks on the path of spirituality, while Pooja is a vibrant socially active person. Pooja believes in living the life to the fullest, rather than wasting life in just understanding it.

Naren does not like to socialize and keeps himself away from the world. He has his own ideals and mindset, by which he restricts himself from getting involved in any matter. Pooja likes to give advices, help others, achieve something and make a mark for herself. Naren has nothing to do with the world, while Pooja aims to bring out her talents to shone in the world. Naren’s parents does not know why Naren has bounded himself. Pooja comes as an answer to them. Naren’s dad sees a bright spark in Pooja and hires her to break Naren’s over-spirituality. Pooja gets the job to make Naren see the realities and practicalities of the world. Pooja is the only one destined for Naren. The show deals with Pooja’s struggles to bring a change in Naren.

Main Characters:

Naren:
Naren is a young, rich, erratic and anti social guy. He loves humanity. He is very helpful. He assumes his birth is for mankind and wants to live every moment by walking on the spiritual path. He has much interest in nature, spirituality and simple living. He does not socialize much. Naren has an unusual appearance and likes to keep himself away from everyone. He confines himself. He is studying psychology all by himself. He is lost in his own world of meditation. He rebels his parents who wants to get him out of spirituality.

Pooja:

Pooja is a simple, dynamic, cheerful and bold girl. She has much talent. She is brave enough to beat up the goons. She has great dancing and karate skills. She runs her own dance school. Her talents make her extraordinary. Pooja has much of patience. She believes in living life to the fullest. She is loving, caring and a confident person. She did not learn to fail in life. She spread happiness around. Pooja is a social bird and likes to meet people. She determines to do a good paying job. She gets the task of winning Naren’s heart and bring him out of the spirituality world.

Cast:

Akshay Mhatre as Naren Vyas
Sheen Dass as Pooja
Avinash Wadhawan as Naren’s father Harish Vyas
Jyoti Gauba as Naren’s mother Supriya
Ankit Vyas as Naren’s cousin Rahul Vyas
Tushar Khanna as Mayank
Kuldeep Mallik as Pooja’s uncle Satish
Rohan Rai as Pooja’s cousin Anuj

Story So Far:

Pooja is seen as a confident girl. She gets ready for her dance performance. The power goes. Pooja’s uncle Satish and cousin Anuj reach there to give the ghungroos to her. They see a man going to Pooja’s green room. Naren’s father is also present there. Pooja beats up the man herself. She tells the man that no girl wears karate belt just for fashion. She scolds the man for stealing the girls’ accessories from green room. Naren’s father gets to see Pooja for the first time. Satish stops Pooja and gives her the Ghungroos, asking her to run for the show. Pooja performs well in the function.

Pooja gets the best student award in college’s annual day. Pooja excels in academics and extra curricular activities. Naren’s parents are the chief guests and give the award to Pooja. Pooja comes home. Her aunt Kusum seems to get unhappy seeing her. She asks Satish not to keep dance certificate in temple area. Pooja turns upset and leaves. Kusum asks Anuj to freshen up and look after his own career. Pooja sees her parents’ picture and misses them. Pooja has won many awards. She feels sad to fail to become a good daughter for Satish and Kusum.

Sharma visits home to meet Satish. Satish sends Pooja and Anuj out of home. Sharma asks Satish to pay money back soon, as he has genuine need to support his son’s education. Satish gets worried. Kusum hears the conversation. She gets a shock knowing the house is mortgaged. She argues with Satish for his foolish step. She feels insulted. She asks him if the reason was more necessary than her. She asks where will we go now. Kusum asks Satish to tell Anuj. She packs her things. She does not want to stay back and asks Anuj to book train tickets.

Pooja asks Kusum to share the problems, so that she can solve it. Kusum taunts Pooja and tells her that Satish mortgaged the house many years ago for Pooja’s mother’s treatment. Pooja gets a shock knowing it. Rahul comes home drunk from club party. He tells Naren is busy looking at the moon. Naren’s mother Supriya worries. Rahul’s mother Neelima asks him to rest now and be back to office from tomorrow. Naren comes home and talks to Supriya. He tells her that he dropped Mayank at Bua’s home. She asks him did he get drunk along with Rahul and Mayank. Naren admits he had a drink.

Pooja gives assurance to Satish. Satish shows his sister’s gifted Rakhis. He feels sorry for not keeping up relations, because of Kusum. He wonders why Kusum does not understand him. He tells Pooja about their old days. Naren’s father Harish has sent Sharma to meet Pooja. Pooja sees Sharma keeping an eye on their house. Pooja goes and confronts Sharma. She asks him to have some shame to eye her. She clears she is not helpless girl to get scared.

Sharma also clears the matter. He tells that she is like his daughter, he wanted to help her by a job offer. He asks her to meet Harish, as Vyas are good people. He asks her to join job as the salary is very good. Neelima is very ambitious and tells Rahul to hold his grip on office well, fearing Rahul not to lose out to Harish, as her husband Hardik did. She asks Rahul not to be careless about work. She wants Rahul to succeed in business. Pooja gets snacks for Satish and Anuj. Satish gets to know she is finding a job. He asks her to complete studies first.

Pooja tells Satish that she wants to gain work experience by joining job early. Naren sees Neelima scolding servants for breaking a costly photo frame. Naren feels its unjust to punish the servants. Naren totally shatters the photo frame to reply Neelima. He asks her to punish him for his misbehavior. He cares for the servants. Harish talks to Rahul about work. Rahul assures him he will solve all the client issues. Harish misses Naren at office. Pooja comes for the interview and feels she is not deserving of such a high standard job. She meets Harish.

She thinks there is a vacancy in Harish’s company. She gives her certificates to Harish. Harish talks straight. He tells her the job is not any company work. He asks her to stay at his home for three months, while his wife Supriya will be guiding her in the work. Pooja gets thinking about joining the job. She gets mistaken that the job is about looking after a small child. She agrees for the job.

Naren asks Supriya not to enter his room for cleaning the space. Supriya apologizes. Mayank comes home and greets Supriya. Bua and her husband Rakesh talk to Naren’s family. Harish tells Rakesh about Naren’s problems. He asks everyone to leave Naren on his own. He does not want to put any pressure on Naren. Mayank asks them not to try to change Naren. Harish leaves everything on time.

Harish tells Rakesh that Rahul solved a problem in office, but he got worried for Naren’s future. He fears that everyone wants to use Naren’s weakness. He feels Hardik is simple, but Neelima is very much ambitious and she would try to break down Naren. Neelima wants to see Rahul as company’s MD. Rahul asks Neelima why did she tell about weekend trip to Supriya. Neelima understands Harish has sent them away from home. She thinks Harish is planning something. Rahul too thinks the same, after seeing Harish relaxed about Naren. Neelima asks servant to keep her informed about every happening at home.

Kusum stays annoyed with Satish. Satish asks her to end her anger and cook food at home. Kusum asks him to cook food himself. He asks her not to trouble Pooja. She feels Pooja ruined their house. Satish is fed up of her behavior. He tells her that he will sell house today itself. Pooja lands in Rishikesh to join the job at Naren’s house. She buys colourful balloons. She reaches Vyas’ house. She asks for Harish. She gets Kusum’s call. Kusum informs about Satish’s decision to sell the house. She asks Pooja to come back. Pooja tells Satish that she has come to find a solution. Satish asks her to come home, there is no need to do any work.

Pooja meets Supriya. Harish gives leave to all servants. Neelima fails to get information from her servant. Pooja asks Supriya about children. Supriya tries to clear her misunderstanding. Harish asks Pooja to come and know the job tasks. Harish takes Pooja to Naren and asks her to help Naren return back to their world. Harish asks Pooja to win Naren’s heart. He explains about Naren, who is walking on the path of spirituality and getting detached from family. He asks Pooja to distract Naren by becoming Menka if needed. Pooja refuses to do the work and gets emotionally hurt. Supriya tries to convince Pooja.

Our Take:

The show is from Rajshri Productions. It has all the lovey dovey relations with bits of scheming materialistic people. Pooja’s caring uncle and nagging aunt make a good combo to create drama. Naren’s family has more members. The joint family has many suppressed problems when it comes to business and property. All the characters look well detailed and realistic. One can expect them to react such way as they do. The story of Vishwamitra and Menaka is retold in this show.

Pooja is hired to bring out Naren from his detached world. Naren’s nature and his interest in spirituality creates suspense. Viewers will be knowing why Naren is such a celibate. Pooja holds a strong and sweet personality. Naren and Pooja’s love story looks engrossing. It is a different concept. The story is well paced and rightly sketched. The lead actors are fairly good. Newcomer Sheen Dass who plays Pooja is convincing, while there is more to see of Akshay Mhatre, who plays Naren. Supporting actors are okay in their roles. It will be interesting to see how Pooja gets Naren out of spiritual world.

Overall:

Pooja’s attempts to get Naren out of his secluded life, by being the modern aged Menaka is a worth watch. Family drama and too many angles get much in between the main track. The show should focus more on Pooja and Naren’s story. Leads’ chemistry has to be seen in upcoming episodes. Viewers can get a spiritual drama and romance dose together.

Our Rating:

2.5 out of 5

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