Yash-gaurare my favorites:Hiten-gauri !

By their own assessment, they were the worst dancers left in Nach Baliye 2. But Hiten Tejwani and Gauri Pradhan danced to the tune of popular votes before being shown the door in Monday night's episode. The Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi stars were visibly disappointed, but they knew it was coming.

"Forget winning, we never thought we would come this far," Hiten told Metro. "This year, all of them were very good dancers, unlike last year when the competition wasn't tough. So when we joined Nach Baliye, it was always like ek ya do round. It was tough for us because we are not very good dancers. We just managed to dance somehow. Our fans had been voting for us so much, the least we could have done is give our 100 per cent."

The reason Hiten and Gauri joined the show was because they wanted to try something new. "We wanted to do something different from the daily soaps and serials," said Hiten, dubbed "the Shah Rukh Khan of the small screen" because of the Kyunki craze. "Reality show was an option and so we did Nach Baliye. Looking back, the journey was very nice, with lots of ups and downs."

Unlike other couples on the show in both seasons, Nach Baliye did little to keep the couple together. "We were together for quantity time, not quality time," said Hiten. "When we were dancing together during the rehearsals, we were concentrating on the dance alone. It was much better when I used to come back home from the shoots. Here, the 10 or 12 hours we were together, we hardly got to talk about anything else."

But now that the dance show is done, the two will get to catch up on the sets of the serials they star in together. "It's not that we try and work together, people want to see us together," revealed Hiten. "When Gauri gets some serial, it's not that I have to do it. But it so happens. We are lucky... Not every couple gets to work together all the time."

And if all else stops, Kyunki will carry on. "Kyunki will never end," said the man who plays Favourite Beta Karan in the popular soap. "The way the story is going I don't see an end. People always complain that it's dragging along but they have to watch it every night!"

Movies haven't really happened for Hiten, apart from cameos in Krishna Cottage and Jogger's Park. "I am also doing Manish Jha's Anwar."As to who will go on to win Nach Baliye, Hiten said with a smile: "Yash and Gouri Tonk are like family. So they will always be favourites for us."