Bade Achhe Lagte Hain

Plot

Ram Kapoor (Ram Kapoor) is a well-reputed, rich, and powerful businessman in his early 40s. Priya Sharma (Sakshi Tanwar), who is in her late 30s, comes from a middle-class family. She is sensible, philosophical and more mature than Ram. The story begins when Ram's younger step sister Natasha (Sumona Chakravarti) and Priya's younger brother Kartik (Mohit Malhotra) fall in love with each other. Kartik believes that he should not marry before his elder sister marries. This stalls the wedding. Owing to Natasha's persistent demands to solve this problem, Ram agrees to marry Priya so that the marriage of Kartik and Natasha is no longer hindered. Initially, Ram and Priya dislike each other but enter into a compromise marriage for their respective families.

Their marriage begins with an initial dislike towards each other. Ram's stepmother Niharika(Eva Grover), her son Siddhant(Mahesh Shetty), her brother Shiney(Salim Shah / Deepak Qazir Kejriwal) plot against Priya to keep Ram and Priya apart and to prevent them from falling in love with each other. However every time problems arise, their trust and respect for each other grows stronger and deeper as they encounter several hurdles in their relationship together. As time passes, they begin to spend more time with one another and begin to love and adore each other. However their relationship remains difficult; every time Priya and Ram grow closer, problems arise and drive them apart. Priya comes to know about Niharika's truth and shows their truth to Ram. Ram at first doesn't believe her but Niharika and Shiney show their true colors to Ram. Then he believes.Ram's real mother Krishna Kapoor also returns in Ram's life because of Priya.

The storyline moves five years ahead. Ram and Priya have separated. This event follows an accident, landslide which happened fives years back in which Priya was assumed to be dead. However Priya is living Dubai under the name of Pooja Sharma, and is happy with her daughter, Peehu (Amrita Mukherjee). She left her marital life because she saw herself as a problem in Ram's life. Ram on the other hand is unaware of his wife and daughter's existence. After many hits and misses, Ram and Priya finally meet in Mumbai where Ram is shocked beyond all means to find out that the love of his life is alive. However, he is livid with Priya for keeping herself and their daughter away from him for five years. Ram files a case for the custody of Peehu. Rajat Kapur (Samir Kochhar), Priya's employer back in Dubai who is in love with her, helps her to fight the case. But after a lot of misunderstandings, their unflinching for each other love emerges true yet again. Ram and Priya unite yet again after overcoming all the hurdles and misunderstandings in their relationship. Soon Priya gets pregnant with twin daughters. And as the story progresses, several antagonists are introduced and the narrative moves between discontinuous time periods. The storyline finally moves fifteen years ahead. Problems do arise but over time Ram and Priya overcome all the hurdles together, following which their life happily continues with their grown-up children by their side.

Production

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain was initially intended to run for 150 episodes but as its popularityincreased it went on to telecast a total of 644 episodes. Bade Achhe Lagte Hain went off-air after completing a run of 3 years, 2 months and 41 days.

Shooting

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain is one of the soap operas in India which broke the monotone of endless indoors-only sequences. Most of it shooting has been done in India. But many episodes of the soap opera have also been shot in foreign locales. Sixteen episodes of the soap opera (episodes 102-117) were shot in Australia over 14 days, in partnership with Tourism Australia, in late 2011, to portray the honeymoon of Ram (Ram Kapoor) and Priya (Sakshi Tanwar). Bade Achhe Lagte Hain also received support from Destination New South Wales, Sony Entertainment Television India and Balaji Telefilms.

The show was co-produced by Tenn-Speed TV Group India.

During the summer of 2012, Ekta Kapoor introduced a five-year leap in the narrative. After this leap, thirty six episodes of Bade Achhe Lagte Hain (episodes 235-270) had content which was shot in Dubai, UAE over a period of 10 days. These episodes showed Priya (Sakshi Tanwar) living with her five-year-old daughter Peehu (Amrita Mukherjee) in the city until she has to return to Mumbai, in India. The production team failed to obtain the correct permits to shoot in Dubai and had to briefly stop shooting until the paperwork was processed.

Music

The title track of the soap opera has been inspired by the song Bade Achhe Lagte Hain, composed by R.D. Burman, from the 1976 Bollywood movie, Balika Badhu. The lyrics of the soap opera's title track have been penned up by Nawab Arzoo and the title track has been sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Trijayh Dey. Lalit Sen provided the music to the title track. The background music or the incidental music of the soap opera has been provided by Abhishek Singh and Mintu Jha. It also includes songs from soundtrack albums of few Bollywood movies.

Dubs and rebroadcasts

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain was dubbed in Telugu and broadcast on Gemini TV as Nuvvu Nachhavu, an afternoon soap opera, premiering on 9 April 2012 . Nuvvu Nachhavu ended its run on 31 August 2012 after airing 105 episodes. Bade Achhe Lagte Hain has also been dubbed in Tamil and its Tamil dubbed version was aired on Polimer TV as Ullam Kollai Poguthada, with some of the characters' names changed. Ullam Kollai Poguthada premiered on 10 December 2012.

An English dubbed version of Bade Achhe Lagte Hain premiered in Jamaica under the title It Seems So Beautiful on CVM TV (free-to-air) on 11 August 2014. It is shown Monday to Friday at 1:00pm and a repeat marathon on Saturdays at 12:00pm of the five episodes shown in the week.

Guest appearances

Integration episodes

The show had two integration episodes with Kya Hua Tera Vaada on 4 and 5 December 2012 and one with Kehta Hai Dil...Jee Le Zara on 6 December 2013.

Response

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain was the fifth most-watched television show in the thirty–fourth week (14–20 August) of 2011 in India, helping propel the broadcasting channel, Sony Entertainment Television India to number two in the rankings of the Hindi general entertainment television channels. The soap opera had a television viewer rating of 3.7 that week while Sony Entertainment Television India recorded a gross rating point of 245.

In the forty eighth week of 2011 (25 November – 1 December), the soap opera became the fourth most-watched television show in India with a TVR of 4.30, and was the seventh most-watched of 2011.

Episode 166 of Bade Achhe Lagte Hain, directed by Anil V. Kumar and telecast on 12 March 2012, was much hyped and anticipated. It showed the protagonists consummating their marriage. India Today described the episode as "aesthetically shot". It was also backed by a teaser which drew the required hype and interest. The consummation sequence was so much anticipated that within minutes of the episode's telecast, the episode went viral on YouTube with nearly 150,630 hits and counting. The love making scene also trended in social networking and microblogging sites such as Twitter. Times of India described the episode as "action packed". Many viewers made fun of the episode and the overweight Ram Kapoor.

IBN Live stated "Indian television is still a good few decades immature when it comes to sex on the TV screen. So much for all the matured relationships and relevant themes – love making on Indian TV is as painful and archaic as the shaking flowers replacing actors on screen when they kiss or make love. A small sigh of relief and Ekta Kapoor and the director can congratulate themselves for the real onscreen peck on the lips.

The episode was so hyped as a couple on an Indian television had never before been so bold. The episode worried certain viewers who did not want to watch the episode with their children. Emirates 24/7 called it a "shocker to the Indian families". India Today described the episode as a "big surprise for the audiences" while Times of India rated it as the Top Intimate Moment on TV. The last couple who kissed on Indian television was Aditya Jakhar (Raqesh Vashisht) and Priya Jakhar (Riddhi Dogra) in the STAR Plus soap opera, Maryada...Lekin Kab Tak? in 2010. Following the telecast of the episode Kapoor tweeted a thank you.

Bade Achhe Lagte Hain was the second most-watched fictional Hindi television show in the weekdays of the twenty-ninth week of 2012 (15–21 July) with a Television Rating Point (TRP) of 4.2, which was 0.5 points up from the TRP of the previous week (8–14 July) when the show had a TRP of 3.7.

In early January 2013, the soap opera's TRP went down to 2.3.

In a poll conducted by Shaadi.com, Ram and Priya were voted the Favourite TV Couple by 42.3% of Indians. Fans even dub the on-screen couple Raya (also written as RaYa), which is a linguistic blend of the pair's names. Ram Kapoor was also called "the Indian husband we love" by a Sunday publication in 2012.

Accolades

Sakshi Tanwar and Ram Kapoor received the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Award for portraying their respective roles in Bade Achhe Lagte Hain, while Ekta Kapoor received the Best Producer award. Bade Achhe Lagte Hain also won the Kalakar Award for the Best Serial in 2012. In addition, the show has won six Indian Television Academy Awards, three Star Guild Awards, five Indian Telly Awards, three FICCI Frames Excellence Honours and two People's Choice Awards.