Star Plus’ new show Meri Durga is a beautiful and inspiring tale of a daughter fulfilling her father’s dream. Durga is not studious. She is very cheerful as every girl of her age. She has no interest in studies. Her father Yashpal dreams to make her a government officer. He wishes to see Durga on a high post so that everyone salutes her with respect.
Yashpal’s dreams get shaky when Durga fails in her exams. He decides to send her to Bhiwani to let his sister raise her. Durga vows to study hard and convince Yashpal to let her stay back in her village. Durga has strong relations with Hanuman ji. Durga starts her journey to live up to Yashpal’s expectations with a good intention to fulfill her father’s dreams. Durga’s real talent of being a fast runner gets observed by a coach. Meri Durga traces Durga’s journey to gain success, fame and honor. Durga wins fame by becoming a national level runner.
Main Characters:
Durga:
Durga is a sweet and bubbly girl. She is Yashpal’s younger daughter. She loves her family and can do anything for them. Durga does not like to study and finds Mathematics her enemy. Durga seeks help from Hanuman ji whenever she falls in trouble. She loves to fly kites and run around in fields. She enjoys her childhood. She has attention problem and suffers in class. Durga finds herself lucky to get true friends. Durga makes all possible attempts to give happiness to everyone. She is raised with love, and holds Yashpal’s honest values. She is Yashpal’s pride.
Yashpal:
Yashpal is a very caring, sensible and doting father. He is elder son and is very responsible towards family. He always made sacrifices for his siblings. He did not get educated and spent all his earnings in educating his siblings. He has no regrets in life, but has one dream to see Durga achieve honor. Yashpal has two daughters, Amrita and Durga. He feels proud to have such good valued daughters. Yashpal does not let poverty affect him goodness. Yashpal works as peon in a school. He stays in village, but has a progressive mind to educate daughters.
Durga’s Family:
Durga stays in a joint family, comprising her grandmother, parents, sister Amrita, uncle Brijpal and aunt Sheela, and cousins. Brijpal is good hearted and very helpful towards Yashpal. Brijpal is indebted to his elder brother Yashpal for educating him and making him capable to earn. Aunt Sheela is a miser and hates Yashpal’s family. Sheela stops Brijpal from helping Yashpal financially. Yashpal’s sister Subhadra has hidden intentions to use Durga as helper at her home. Subhadra does money favors on Yashpal to hold a positive image. Yashpal’s mother Amma is a kind lady, who always acknowledges Yashpal’s sacrifices made for family. Durga’s mother Annapurna is the one responsible for keeping family united, despite Sheela’s many attempts to divide the house.
Cast:
Vicky Ahuja as Yashpal Choudhary
Ananya Agarwal as Durga
Amardeep Jha as Dadi
Rajiv Khanna as Brijpal
Rashmi Shaw as Annupurna
Jyotika Kukrety as Sheela Chachi
Aishwarya as Amrita
Sanjay Kaushik as Rishi
Rakhi Tandon as Subhadra
Rajesh Shringarpure as Coach
Nandani Master as Srijita
Ashna Kishore as Shilpa
Ramansh Bundela as Bantu
Story So Far:
The story begins in a small village of Haryana. Yashpal prays and begins his morning. He finds Durga sleeping under the bed. He wakes up her and takes her to school. He tells her importance of studies and his dreams to see her earn a big name. Durga is in her own world. She sees the kites in sky and smiles. Durga writes her Maths exam and does not know any of the solutions. After the exam, Durga meets her friends. Yashpal tells other peon about his dreams to educate Durga and make her successful. Durga sees a kite and runs after the kite. She runs in high speed and follows the kite. A running race competition is conducted far away in village.
Durga reaches there and runs in the race track while following the kite. She surpasses all the boys competing and breaks into finishing line setting new record time. She gets the kite and runs off. The coach seems to get impressed by her. Durga sells that kite to get some money to help her mother. Sheela gets a proposal for Amrita. Yashpal is content that Brijpal has seen that guy. They fix a meeting with guy’s family. Annapurna worries for expenses for tea and snacks. Durga keeps the money in Annapurna’s purse. Amrita tells Durga that she has no proper dress to wear. Durga plucks some mangoes to give her friend, and instead borrows a dress for Amrita.
At school, Durga gets worried seeing her exam result. Durga thinks to tell result to Yashpal after the guy’s family leaves. She does not wish to spoil family’s happiness by stating her poor marks. Yashpal tries asking Durga about marks. Durga runs away. Subhadra and her daughter Srijata arrive to become part of the alliance meet. Subhadra shows off her status. She acts sweet and helpful to everyone. Amrita gets ready. Rishi and his mum arrive. Rishi talks to Amrita in private and gets to know her good thoughts. He agrees to marry Amrita. Rishi and Amrita’s marriage gets fixed. Yashpal worries for expenses.
Subhadra congratulates them for the new relation forming. Shilpa gets jealous seeing Durga and Srijata bonding. Shilpa gets Durga’s exam papers and sees her low marks. She intentionally goes to spoil everyone’s happiness. She shows the papers to Yashpal. Yashpal gets shocked seeing Durga’s poor marks. Yashpal scolds Durga. Subhadra asks Yashpal to send off Durga with her to Bhiwani, where Durga can stay with Srijata and study well. Yashpal agrees to send Durga for her bright future. Durga does not want to go away from family and cries. Amrita consoles her. Durga goes to convince Yashpal about cancelling Bhiwani plan.
Yashpal does not listen to her. Amrita asks Durga to study Maths by understanding it. Durga thinks to work hard. Sheela asks Yashpal to teach household work to Durga, instead educating her. Yashpal does not listen to anyone and stays firm to make Durga successful. Dadi tells Brijpal to share Yashpal’s financial load. Brijpal promises to help Yashpal in managing Amrita’s marriage expenses. Subhadra breaks neighbor’s crockery and blames Durga. Yashpal tells Durga that he is getting her name removed from school today.
Dadi is concerned for Yashpal, who have spent his everything on educating Subhadra and Brijpal. Dadi wishes the best for Yashpal and his family. Durga asks Yashpal to give her just one chance, so that she can study hard and show them. Yashpal does not listen. Durga tells her friends about leaving the village and going Bhiwani. She asks them to stop Yashpal from talking to principal. Yashpal goes with principal for some school work. Durga goes to Hanuman temple and talks innocently.
She shares her Maths problem and asks Hanuman ji to stop Yashpal from sending her to Bhiwani. She gives a chocolate as prasad for Hanuman ji. Pandit finds Durga very sweet and innocent, and assures her that Hanuman ji will answer her prayers. Yashpal could not talk to principal. Durga sees Shilpa and Bantu fooling a man for money. Durga tells the man about their trick. Shilpa and Durga get into a fight on the street. Yashpal happens to see this and gets angry. Shilpa lies and blames Durga for theft. Sheela asks Yashpal to send off Durga soon. Yashpal shows his belief in Durga and tells everyone that Durga can lie about exam result, but she can never steal anything.
Yashpal calls Durga his pride. Sheela asks Dadi for house division, to which Dadi refuses. After reaching home, Durga worries and asks Annapurna to know from Yashpal what happened at school. Yashpal tells them that he could not remove Durga’s name from school today. Durga goes to meet her friends. She tells them that Hanuman ji saved her today, but her dad will surely remove her name tomorrow. They all promise to help Durga stay back.
Our Take:
The show brings a heart touching story. Characterizations are very strong. One can easily connect to the characters and concept. It’s much relatable. Every actor is brilliant in their portrayals. Supporting cast has less to do, but even they are well cast. Vicky Ahuja as Yashpal renders a realistic performance. He is simply superb as a doting father. Ananya Agarwal as Durga is very much natural. She looks bright and holds strong screen presence. The story solely belongs to Ananya. It’s just Durga enlightening every episode.
Ananya’s innocent looks and amazing talent fills in life in Durga’s character. Story holds much potential. Meri Durga can connect to the masses. The show is very much simple as per the story needs. It does not have lavish sets and costly costumes to be liked, but the village set up and real to life subtle attires impress more. The village locales seen beautify the scenes. There is much realism, positivism, practicality and inspiration driven by Yashpal and Durga’s characters. Everything is balanced in right amounts. There is not much melodrama or emotional tear floods in any scene. Story pace has been good till now. Moments of Durga celebrating childhood bring joy. There are not much of antagonists spoiling the track, so story looks peaceful. Viewers can hope the show to maintain the charm.
Overall:
Meri Durga is a very simple and beautiful show. It is a good clean family entertainer. Amazing cast, natural performances and real good concept on Star Plus, yet again.
Our Rating:
4 out of 5
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