Sapna Babul Ka... Bidaai

This story is about Ragini (Parul Chauhan) and Sadhana (Sara Khan), who are cousins. The first few episodes portray the death of Sadhana's mother due to her illness, and Sadhana's father being incapable of saving her due to him having an insufficient amount of money. Sadhana's father vows to travel to the United States of America to accumulate more money and endows the young Sadhana to her maternal uncle Prakash Chandra (Alok Nath). The show then takes a 17-year leap with Sadhana living in Agra and her father in California. Sadhana's father's only dream is to see her in the form of a bride. On the contrary, Sadhana longs to see her father. Living in the Sharma household, she manages to win both Ragini's and Prakash Chandra's hearts over, however Ragini's mother, Kaushalya (Vibha Chibber) is hesitant due to the difference of skin complexion between the two. One day, the news comes that Sadhana's father is returning from California and will take Sadhana back to Udaipur. Everyone rejoices. However, a turn of fate destroys all hope. Unfortunately, due to the violent weather, Sadhana's father's plane crashes and he dies. Sadhana is heartbroken to hear the news. She eventually ends up staying at the Sharma house.

Struggles for finding a suitable match for Ragini are on, owing to her dark complexion, and she ends up getting rejected in favour of the lighter-complexioned Sadhana. However, one proposal is finalized, and Kaushalya and Nanima decide to hide Sadhana. However, due to unforeseeable circumstances, Sadhana reaches the wedding venue of Ragini, and the boy's family reject Ragini in favour of Sadhana once again, which causes Kaushalya to attempt suicide, but Prakashchand saves her. Things return to normal, and Sadhana gets a new job.

Sadhana starts working at the Rajvansh house as a tutor. Ranveer (Kinshuk Mahajan) is one of the sons of the house who went to the United States of America to study abroad and eventually comes back. He has a brother Alekh (Angad Hasija) who is mentally unstable. Alekh's mother, Vasundhara (Seema Kapoor) thinks that marriage can help Alekh to get better. The Sharmas suffer from major financial problems and are threatened to lose their house. Vasundhara offers Sadhana money to save their home in exchange for Sadhana and Alekh's marriage, but Sadhana also puts forth the additional demand of getting Ranveer married to Ragini, because she witnesses Ranveer protecting Ragini's honour from a few hooligans after they tease her dark complexion and comes to the conclusion that he would make a good life partner for Ragini, and she for him. Vasundhara tricks Sadhana by accepting her demand, but it is only a facade. She sends off Ranveer to the U.S., while Sadhana marries Alekh, but promises to get them married once he returns. Sadhana marries Alekh, but the marriage of Ragini with Ranveer does not happen as Ranvir falls in love with Sonia while in the U.S., and brings her along with him to India. However, it is later revealed that Sonia is a gold-digger who only attached herself to Ranveer for his money. After this revelation, Ranveer is heartbroken and begins to sink into depression. However, as a twist of fate, it is Ragini who ends up saving him from this fate when she dials his number by mistake, and in beautiful words, advises him to move on in life. Ranveer is massively enthralled by her words, and slowly, Ranveer and Ragini begin talking on the phone regularly, unaware of the other's identity. They refer to themselves as Anmol and Anamika. Sadhana eventually figures this out, but does not reveal it to them and leaves the fate of their friendship to God. She, however, lets Alekh in on this secret.

Ranveer and Ragini begin to fall in love, and decide to meet each other. However, when they meet, both are shocked, and due to the interference of Vasundhara (who doesn't want to accept Ragini as her daughter-in-law due to her dark complexion), Ranveer thinks that Ragini knew about his identity all along, but chose to play with his feelings in order to marry into a rich family. Ragini, meanwhile, is shocked to learn that Ranveer is Anmol, and is heartbroken when he seemingly rejects her. Ranveer and Ragini, both get to know that Sadhana knew about their real identities all along and blame her for hiding it from them. However, misunderstandings eventually get cleared up after Ranveer realises that he truly loves Ragini when he learns that very much like him, she too had no idea of his real identity and had truly loved him all along. He decides that his life is not complete without her and fights tooth and nail to win her love after leaving her heartbroken. Slowly but surely, their love wins over their families, especially their opposing mothers, and they eventually marry. After their marriage, they decide to help Sadhana in order to cure Alekh so that she can experience a fulfilling marital life as well. Ranveer started investigating what happened with him that diwali night so he Ragini and Sadhana plan to recreate that diwali night once again as Alekh see that moment again he remembers that Ambika killed his grandfather and he was told by Ambika to Alekh that his grandfather was killed by Vasundhara . Alekh feels very humiliated and apologizes to Vasundhra . The next day Ambika and Sathyen left the Rajvansh house and Ambika cursed that history will repeat itself and this time it will be Ragini and Sadhna . This all eventually clears up and Alekh starts living a normal life . They are successful in their quest. Misunderstandings develop between Sadhana and Alekh after his recovery, however, they also get cleared up eventually, and they all live happily together for a while. Ragini and Sadhana soon become pregnant and the whole family are overjoyed. However, nine months later, tragedy strikes as Sadhana dies in a fire, whilst saving Ragini but her unborn baby is saved. The whole family are devastated of Sadhana's death. Ragini thus decides to raise Sadhana's daughter up too along with hers.

The show then takes a seven-year leap where Ragini is shown bringing her daughter Tamanna up along with Khushi who is Sadhana's daughter. Ragini and the family commemorate the seventh anniversary of Sadhana's death. It is revealed that Ranveer died, too, in a rock avalanche while saving his friend Anmol (Apurva Agnihotri)'s life. Anmol promised Ranvir to look after his family and as a result, he lives in the Rajvansh household as Tamanna's father. After Sadhana and Ranveer's deaths, Alekh has lost his mental balance once again but eventually recovers thanks to the care of a girl named Sakshi (Sulagna Panigrahi) who comes close to him. The show ends with a two-hour special episode in which Ragini remarries to Anmol and Alekh to Sakshi. Guests come to congratulate them and dance. Both couples take deceased Sadhana and Ranveer's blessings and perform the Bidaai (farewell) ritual.

Bidaai is the first offering of Producer Rajan Shahi under Director's Kut Production.[7] The initial phase of the series is inspired from the Bollywood film Vivah of Rajshri Productions.[8][9]

The series is based on the backdrop of Agra.[10] The series was mainly filmed in Mumbai at the sets in Mira Road.[11] Besides, some scenes were filmed in and on the outskirts of Agra including Taj Mahal.[12][13]

Speaking about his role, male lead Angad Hasija said, "My character Alekh was a Schizophrenic. Initially, I had a problem, but I really worked hard to build the character,"[14] Initially, Hasija was rejected for the role by Producer Rajan Shahi considering his long hair and physique appearance not suitable. After working on those, Shahi accepted him for the role of Alekh.[15]

In October 2007, shooting of the series was stalled for a while when the Labour Union protested for hiring men for erecting the sets from outside rather than the members from the Film Studio Setting and Allied Mazdoor Union as per the rules.[16]

In October 2008, a special sequence of celebrating Taj Mahotsav was shot in Agra where Hema Malini was roped for a guest appearance as the chief guest of the event.[17] Besides, Shweta Tiwari and Anjali Abrol appeared as the performers of that event and Vivan Bhatena also made a special appearance for the event.[18]

In November 2008, the shootings and telecast of all the Hindi television series including this series and films were stalled on 8 November 2008 due to dispute by the technician workers of FWICE (Federation of Western India Cine Employees) for increasing the wages, better work conditions and more breaks between shootings.[19] FWICE first took a strike on 1 October 2008 when they addressed their problems with the producers and production was stalled.[20] A contract was signed after four days discussions and shooting were happening only for two hours content in a day then after which differences increased between them while channels gave them time until 30 October 2008 to sort it out.[21] Failing to do so lead to protests again from 10 November 2008 to 19 November 2008 during which channels blacked out new broadcasts and repeat telecasts were shown from 10 November 2008.[21][22] On 19 November 2008, the strike was called off after settling the disputes and the production resumed.[23] The new episodes started to telecast from 1 December 2008.[24] Shahi reported about ₹7 Lakh losses due to the stalling of production and telecast.[25]

In December 2009, the shoot of the series was stalled for three hours due to the morcha by some group of women when the lead sisters Sadhna and Ragini were shown developing differences between them in their marital home in the series which they condemned. However, they were pacified by Producer Rajan Shahi, Sara Khan and Parul Chauhan playing Sadhna and Ragini and the shootings resumed.[26]

In January 2009, Eva Grover was cast as Sheetal for a small cameo.[27] Good response her role made it to be extended.[28] In February 2009, the honeymoon track of the characters Sadhna and Alekh, Ragini and Ranbir was filmed in Kerala where Payal Nair and Anupam Bhattacharya were cast as Gayathri and Madhavan for a cameo.[29] Initially they were supposed to go to Switzerland for the honeymoon sequence which could not as Sara Khan playing Sadhna did not have passport and time to arrange for it which was required soon and Kerala was finalized for it.[30] A sequence during the last day shoot in a beach in Kerala was stalled in between due to dispute between the production unit and the local fishermen there and thus being cut during telecast.[31]

In February 2010, film actress Hansika Motwani was seen in a cameo as the chief guest of the dance competition event Natraj Mahotsav in the series.[32] Besides Mouli Ganguly played the cameo of host, Sangita Ghosh and Sanjeeda Sheikh being the performers in the event.[33] In June 2010, to increase the ratings, one of the main characters was killed, causing Sara Khan to exit the series.[5] Soon, when a generation leap followed, one of the male leads Kinshuk Mahajan quit where his character was also killed and Apurva Agnihotri was cast as the new male lead opposite Parul Chauhan.[34] Following it, in August 2010 Sulagna Panigrahi was cast as Sakshi opposite Hasija.[35]

• Sapna Babul Ka... Bidaai at IMDb