Kundali Bhagya

Kundali Bhagya (transl. The Fate of Our Horoscope) is an Indian Hindi-language romantic drama television series created by Ekta Kapoor and produced by Balaji Telefilms. A spin-off of Kumkum Bhagya, it premiered on 12 July 2017 on Zee TV. The show featured Shraddha Arya, Dheeraj Dhoopar, Manit Joura, Shakti Arora, Shakti Anand, Paras Kalnawat, Sana Sayyad, Baseer Ali, and Adrija Roy. After airing for nearly 7.5 years, the show went off-air abruptly on 6 December 2024, completing over 2000 episodes.
The Arora sisters, Preeta and Srishti, move to Mumbai to fulfill their father’s dying wish of reuniting with their mother, Sarla. Preeta becomes a physiotherapist for Bani Luthra, the matriarch of the Luthra family. While the elder grandson, Rishabh, shares a cordial bond with her, the younger one, Karan, a cricket star, has a strained relationship with her. Preeta and Karan slowly develop a friendship that turns into love, though neither confesses their feelings.
Rishabh is set to marry Sherlyn, but Preeta and Karan discover that Sherlyn is having an affair with Preeta's fiancé, Prithvi. Despite their attempts to stop the wedding, Sherlyn manipulates the situation, and Karan, influenced by misunderstandings, starts hating Preeta. On the day of Preeta’s wedding to Prithvi, Karan takes his place, marrying her out of spite but soon abandoning her. Kareena arranges for Karan to marry Mahira, his obsessive childhood friend. Preeta then replaces Mahira and marries Karan. Despite their reconciliation, Karan and Preeta face more obstacles as Sherlyn and Prithvi continue to scheme against them.
Three months later, Preeta and Karan adopt a child, Pihu. Sonakshi, Karan’s college friend, tries to separate them due to her obsession with Karan. Sonakshi arranges for a goon to cause an accident that results in Pihu’s death. Preeta is blamed for the accident and removed from the Luthra house, while Karan expels Sonakshi for coercing him into marrying her.
Two years later, Preeta returns to Mumbai from her hometown. She meets Mahesh, who is now mentally unstable after being tortured by Prithvi. She learns that Prithvi has taken control of the Luthra business and is exploiting the family. With Mahesh’s will, Preeta re-enters the Luthra mansion and exposes Prithvi’s schemes. She helps Rishabh return from Dubai, where he had been trapped by Prithvi, and they both expose Sherlyn and Prithvi. Sherlyn and Natasha try to convince Karan that Preeta and Rishabh are having an affair. Karan is manipulated into believing this, and he is later pushed off a dam by Natasha and Roxy. He is presumed dead. Preeta, who is pregnant with Karan's child, marries Rishabh for the child’s legitimacy. Preeta gives birth to a daughter, Kavya.
Five years later, Karan is revealed to have survived the accident but suffered memory loss and undergone plastic surgery. He returns as Arjun Suryavanshi and is engaged to Nidhi Hinduja, who saved him. As Arjun, Karan tries to destroy Preeta and Rishabh, believing they pushed him off the dam. Eventually, after learning Karan's true identity, Preeta and Rishabh prove their innocence through CCTV footage. Karan regains his memory and reconciles with Preeta. He severs ties with Nidhi. After a few months, Karan and Preeta have fraternal twin sons, Rudraksh and Shaurya. Nidhi's sister, Anjali, who is obsessed with Karan, kidnaps Rudraksh. However, after a series of events, she dies in a confrontation. Preeta is once again blamed for the chaos and leaves the family, but she saves Rudraksh. It is presumed by the Luthras that Preeta and Rudraksh have died.
Twenty years later, Preeta and Srishti have relocated, and Srishti has raised Preeta’s son, Rudraksh, whom she renamed Rajveer. Preeta, who lost her memories after the accident, suffers from panic attacks. Rajveer, now grown up, learns about his true parentage and returns to Mumbai with a determination to reclaim Preeta’s honor. Meanwhile, Rajveer gets a job at Karan’s company, and Shaurya grows insecure about Rajveer and plots against him. Rajveer and Palki fall in love, while Nidhi and Shaurya continue to plot against Rajveer and Preeta. The Luthra family slowly begins to accept Preeta again. Kavya's fiancé, Varun, is revealed to be Prithvi and Sherlyn's son, Shelly, who came to take revenge. The relationship is called off. Rajveer is appointed CEO of Luthra Industries. Soon, Preeta realizes Shaurya's scheming, and a huge confrontation ensues, with Nidhi blaming Shaurya's actions on Rajveer. In a fit of rage, Rakhi and Mahesh end up revealing Rajveer's true identity in front of Preeta, triggering her memory. She collapses into a coma, and the family prays for her recovery.
The production and airing of the show was halted indefinitely in late March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the outbreak, the filming of television series and films was halted on 19 March 2020 and expected to resume on 1 April 2020 but could not and the series was last broadcast on 24 March 2020 when the remaining episodes were aired. After three months, the production and filming of the series resumed on 29 June 2020 and broadcast to resume from 13 July 2020.
In January 2022, Supriya Shukla who played Sarla Arora, quit the show, saying, "I had done everything as Sarla but there was not much left for me to do". In June of the same year, actor Dheeraj Dhoopar, who played Karan Luthra, also quit the series for personal reasons and was replaced by Shakti Arora.
In January 2023, a twenty-year generation leap and a new generation of leads were announced. Arora, who replaced Dhoopar as Karan, quit owing to the generation leap, stating he didn't want to play a father to grown-ups and wanted to explore other things. Arora was then replaced by Shakti Anand after the leap. Sanjay Gagnani, who portrayed Prithvi Malhotra, also announced his decisions to quit the series as he wanted to take up new opportunities. Shraddha Arya, who portrays Preeta Luthra, decided to continue as a mother to the new generation. Later in March 2023, Sonal Vengurlekar, playing Anjali Hinduja, also announced her decision to quit after the generation leap because she didn't wanted to age onscreen. Ruhi Chaturvedi, who portrayed Sherlyn Khurana, also quit right before leap as she wanted to explore more as an actress. However from June 2024 she made her appearance once again as Sherlyn.
Paras Kalnawat and Sana Sayyad were introduced as new leads with Kalnawat as one of Preeta's twin sons, Rajveer Arora Luthra and Sayyad as Dr. Palki Khurana while debutante Baseer Ali was cast as negative lead and another twin son of Preeta, Shaurya Luthra. In the same month, Rose Sardana was cast to play Mahi Khurana, Palki's sister.
In May 2023, Anjum Fakih portraying Srishti Arora, who had initially taken a break from the show for participating in Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 13, later confirmed quitting as her role was no longer challenging after the leap, but also said that she will return if the story requires her character, and she reprised her role in July 2023, post her stint in the adventure-based reality show. However she permanently quit the series in October 2023 to explore new projects by calling it the most difficult decision, and the storyline showcased Srishti ending up in coma with severe facial and physical burns due to Nidhi's murder attempt on her.
Later Abhishek Kapoor who portrayed Sameer Luthra too quit the series to try new spaces as an actor. In June 2023, Ira Sone portraying Nidhi quit the series and Akanksha Juneja replaced her. Later in the following month, Mrinal Navell Chandra was cast to play grown-up Kavya Luthra replacing Ananya Gambhir who played Kavya's younger version, while Aashish Trivedi was cast opposite her as Varun Gill and Guneet Sharma was cast to play his brother Rahul. But later on in June 2024 Varun's character was revealed to be Prithvi and Sherlyn's son Shelly Malhotra. In the following month, Shalini Mahal joined the cast as Palki's sister Shanaya Khurana.
In February 2024, Manit Joura portraying Rishabh Luthra quit after being a part of the show for seven long years saying that he realized his journey in the show was over and an intelligent actor knows where to stop. While Rajesh Sharma replaced Farooq Khan as Goutam Gill in same month. In May 2024, Sana Sayyad portraying Palki quit the series due to her pregnancy and Adrija Roy stepped into her shoes opposite Paras Kalnawat. In same month Baseer Ali playing Shaurya Luthra was rumoured to quit the show but the actor denied so. However he confirmed about him serving his notice period required prior quitting the series in following month. The following month Mayanka Sharma Patel replaced Naina Gupta as Roma Gill who earlier replaced Gayatri Soham in February 2024. Meanwhile Sanjana Phadke too reprised her role of Sanjana Khurana in same month after 2 years hiatus.
On 19 November 2024, it was announced that the show would go off-air after a run of seven and a half years, with the final episode airing on 6 December 2024, hours after Shraddha Arya confirmed quitting the show due to her due date approaching. Actors Shakti Anand and Paras Kalnawat revealed that it was a '"sudden and shocking move by the channel and production house", and that they were not informed or prepared for this decision until the last moment.
Kundali Bhagya is one of the longest-running Indian television series. It took its generation leap on 16 March 2023 and completed its 1500 episodes on 10 April 2023.
Anjum Fakih's character was slated to be negative after three months from the day of premiere of the show, but the love of audience to her positive character made the production revoke their decision.