|| Shraddha || About The Show & Characters

Character Sketch

Jagdish Jaiswal (60 years)
Jagdish Jaiswal, essentially the Ram of the family. A simple man with a few needs, Jagdish Jaiswal the eldest son and now the oldest member of the family is a religious person.He likes to keep it plain and simple and hence dresses in plain shirts and trousers and at home in kurta pajama. He is soft spoken, doesn't get angry very easily and even if he did lose his temper, instead of screaming, he gets emotional and quiets down. He has a thin frame, hardly any flesh to boast of, physically very weak and suffers from occasional age related illness. However, none of this has affected his spirit; he is quite nimble and very active.

When he was just a teenager, a tragic incident occurred where the family business;the sole source of income went kaput leaving the family handicapped for quite a while. Unable to overcome the shock of it all, Gangadhar Jaiswal passed away, leaving behind a helpless wife and two very young sons. But Jagdish, despite being only a teenager, bravely took on the responsibility of the family and did an odd job bringing back normalcy into the family and especially into the life of the younger brother;also taking on the burden of his entire education.Years passed by in pretty much the same fashion;with hardships and problems presenting them here and there to fill the entire family's stomach. He never let his impressionable younger brother, Trilok feel the pain he had felt and single-mindedly went about at every step in life, Jagdish grew up into a responsible adult and got married to a woman named Laxmi. Laxmi, Sita of the family, is his soul mate in every way. She is just like him; simple, innocent and extremely religious. Laxmi's entry into the family proved auspicious for the family as Jagdish soon left his job and from whatever little money he had, he started his own business. It was a retail outlet selling things required for religious ceremonies (puja samagri) and named it 'Laxmi Puja Samagri Bhandar' after his much beloved wife.

Just when things seemed to be getting back on track, his mother passed away. But strong-willed that he was, life went on despite many troubles and obstacles. Ever so slowly, his business started growing and some financial stability came into his life for the first time in a long time. By then, Trilok finished his education and Jagdish, like a responsible elder of the house, got him married and started a new business especially for his brother so that he would not have to go through the same impediments in life as he himself was subjected to. Jagdish had the option of expanding his own business but instead he dedicated himself to the wellbeing of his younger brother by setting up a new business for him. Soon both their families started growing. Jagdish had 4 kids, 3 sons and 1 daughter. It is believed that the 3 sons were had in hope for a girl as Jagdish wanted another 'Laxmi' in the family.

Jagdish tried to instill the same values in his kids as he had himself been blessed with. His life, right since childhood, was laden with responsibilities which he performed with ease, efficiency and without any complaint or regret. Now that he has taken care of every member of the family, he is finally leading a retired life. The shop is being looked after by his two eldest sons, Santosh and Manoj. The youngest son, Ashok is doing management studies in Pune. Now that he has fulfilled all his responsibilities including saving money for the marriage of his youngest daughter, Shraddha and accomplished all that he wanted, he has only two desires left in life; to marry off his youngest daughter in a good family and to go visit the Char Dhams with his wife and keep the tradition of the forefathers alive. He is hoping that soon the money gets collected in the 'Char Dham' chest. For the first time in his life, he is depending on his sons to provide him with the money and be dutiful like he himself has been throughout his life.

Laxmi Jaiswal (55)
The Sita of the family, Laxmi is a small town lady by heart; sweet, simple, innocent and extremely religious. She is a housewife and from the very beginning, a very responsible person. At every step, she stood by Jagdish and helped and supported him. When Jagdish was busy looking after the shop, Laxmi took on the entire responsibility of managing the house; ensuring the comfort of all those living in the house. She looked after her brother in law, Trilok as if he was her son and doted on him just like Jagdish did. She believed that as the oldest woman of the family, it is her responsibility to keep the family together. She has always been a quintessential family member; being nice and caring towards all and now a loving grandmother. Now she spends most of her time with her retired husband Jagdish, her grandchildren and in performing her routine pooja ceremonies. Since the last few years, she is afflicted by cataract in her eyes which has left her nearly blind. Jagdish is very worried about her eyes but is unaware that it can be cured through operation. None of them have taken after their conscientious and selfless parents; all of them being rather pre-occupied with their own selfish and materialistic lives. Laxmi is not really much concerned about her eyes but does wish that her eyesight comes back before her daughter is married off so that she can witness the big occasion. Just like her husband, her only real aspiration now is to visit the Char Dhams along with her husband this year and is fervently counting down.

Santosh Jaiswal (32)
Santosh Jaiswal, Jagdish and Laxmi's eldest son is known as Sannu in the house. He is a simple and a soft spoken person but extremely insecure and weak. He is easily influenced by stronger minds around; which in his case is his wife and younger brother, Manoj. These people together have formed their own team against their parents, Trilok Chacha and Guddi Chachi. Santosh himself is not really opposed to his parents, in fact he has enormous love and respect for them but it is his weak personality that often presents itself as a barrier in establishing a stronger bond with his parents. He lives in his cunning and domineering wife's shadow and cannot find it within him to rebel against her. He finds it safer and easier to blindly agree with whatever his wife and younger brother have to say. Despite being the eldest and disapproving of his wife and younger brother, he acts more like a puppet in their hands; not being able to gather courage to take a stand against them. He conveniently believes that his life is destined to be led this way and thus unknowingly rationalizes his actions.

Santosh was always weak at studies nonetheless very good at arithmetic and hence he took up the responsibility of running the shop along with his younger brother. They have divided their tasks whereby he sits in the shop while Manoj looks after sales and purchase. He is married to Namrata and has a boy and a girl.

Namrata Jaiswal (28)
Namrata is Santosh's dominating wife and family's eldest daughter in law. Namrata belonged to a small village near Ujjain.
Namrata is an ambitious, avaricious and a power hungry woman. She is obsessed with materialistic pleasures and considers it her life's ambition to possess as many expensive and luxurious products as possible. Namrata has a deep-rooted inferiority complex due to people like Laxmi and Guddi Chachi around. Laxmi's innate goodness constantly reminds her of her own shortcomings and Chachi's wealth makes her green with envy. Guddi Chachi is extremely arrogant about all the wealth that she has due to Trilok's thriving business and hence indulges in exhibition by embellishing her part of the house with expensive furniture and dcor. This annoys Namrata beyond description due to which there exists a perpetual competition and rivalry between the two. And in this rivalry, she has support from his brother-in-law Manoj and his wife, Rama while Santosh always stays neutral.

Namrata, despite her preoccupations, manages to find time to resent her parents in law as well. She feels that Shraddha's marriage and her parents in law's desire to visit the four dhams will lead to exorbitant waste of money and hence has already warned his husband not to contribute a penny towards the same. Obsessed with expensive jewellery and fancy clothes, she constantly demands these from her husband and cribs and whines when he fails to fulfill her desires. She also likes to constantly complain about the fact that they do not possess expensive furniture, AC and such other luxuries as Guddi Chachi's family does. She indulges in show off and could go to any extent to emerge a winner. She wears a sari and marks her forehead with a thick 'sindur' to come across as a dutiful wife. She pretends to be good in front of everyone but within her resides a demon ready to pounce upon her so-called competitors.

Manoj Jaiswal (28)
Manoj, popularly known as Mannu in the house, is tall and well built. He is Jagdish's second eldest son. Unlike his elder brother, he is very ambitious, short-tempered and insidious almost. He is a shrewd businessman and runs his father's shop along with his elder brother Sannu. On surface both the brothers run the business but it is really Manoj who does all the planning and the strategizing. Santosh only takes care of the cash counter whereas Manoj has taken over the responsibility of sales and purchase. When it comes to money, there is no right and wrong, righteousness or morality for Manoj. He lives by the motto that 'Everything is fair in love, war and business.' It is this similarity in thinking that makes him very attached to Santosh's wife Namrata, his bhabhi.

Everyone in the house dotes on Ashok, the youngest son and Shraddha the youngest daughter, making him feel neglected and hence he has a lot of bitterness towards Ashok in his heart. Ashok has been sent to Pune for his management studies by the parents which further annoys Manoj. He feels that he has always been treated unjustly by his parents which in reality is not true at all. If anything, he has been endowed with a lot of leniency and benefit of doubt despite his failures in familial duties, education and acquiring a job on merit. Finally when nothing seemed to be going his way, his father made him a part of the family business and yet he is vindictive towards both his father and Ashok today. He considers his parents' desire of visiting the four dhams a burden on himself and has convinced his elder brother Santosh and his bhabhi Namrata to shove the responsibility on Ashok's shoulders instead. This is because he strongly feels that his parents have spent a fortune on Ashok's studies and now it is only fair that he return the favor. Spiteful that he is of his father's benevolent decisions, he blames him for losing out on the opportunity of expanding the business because had his father done that, all the sons would have independently owned a shop each. Jagdish who instead spent that money and energy on setting up a business for his brother Trilok, now leads a more affluent and comfortable life which Mannu cannot bear to watch. He despises Trilok Chacha and his family from the bottom of his heart and this hate often translates itself into heated arguments and squabbles with them.

Rama Jaiswal (25)
Rama is Manoj's wife and just like the Jaiswals comes from a business community family. Her parents are just a little wealthier than the Jaiswals. She is very beautiful and arrogant both about her family's better standing and her looks. She often whinges about Jaiswal family's slightly lower status in front of her husband. She is ashamed of the fact and hence never invites any of her friends or relatives into her house. If she could have her own way, she would immediately cause a partition in the family and settle in a different, more lavish house with her husband alone. Due to this commonality that she shares with Namrata, all four of them have grouped together and understand each other well. It is their mission to exclude Ashok, the youngest son from the property ownership because they feel that a lot has already been spent after his education in Pune. Just like Namrata and Manoj, she too feels that spending money on the parents four dham visit is a complete waste and busies herself in conspiring to cause a debacle of their visit plans. She too pretends to be nice in front of the rest of the family. She likes just as much to pose herself against Trilok Chacha's family and zealously competes with them in materialistic show off.

Ashok Jaiswal (24)
Ashok is Jagdish's youngest son and hence the pampered child of the family. He is handsome and very sophisticated, mostly in appearance and outwardly manners. He is good at studies. However Ashok is not really what he appears to be on surface. He is doing management studies from Pune and this is his last year. A classmate of his is his girlfriend but he has kept this a secret from the family. He is close to his sister Shraddha and is not as much cunning as his elder brothers. But when he comes under influence of Guddi and Trilok, he loses his ability to differentiate between the right and the wrong and takes some very wrong decisions.

Shraddha (20) (Protogonist)

She is the Shravan Kumar of our story. She is pretty to look at and simple and innocent by nature. She is a typical small town girl who loves her parents more than anything else. She is her parents' favorite and the only one to have been inculcated with the good values that her parents possess. As is evident, she is very attached to her family; calls her eldest brothers Santosh, Sannu Bhaiya and Manoj, Mannu bhaiya. Their wives dislike Shraddha but her innocence doesn't allow her to understand their true deceitful personalities. Her simplicity doesn't allow her to have enemies and shields her from all the negativity and bitterness that abounds her. She shares a great relationship with the grandchildren of the family which is only natural considering that her childish innocence the most evident trait in her personality.

She is a devotee of Shiv and considers Nandi ' the statue of cow in Shiv temples, her friend. She daily bathes the statue and even talks to it. She shares all her little secrets with the statue. Shraddha, a responsible young girl that she is, likes to relieve the family of her burden and also contribute towards the pilgrimage collections and for this, she decides to get married to Amit and settle abroad against her own wishes. She is soft skinned but has a strong gut. She is very gritty and once she takes on a task, she would not sit quietly until she is done with it. Her ambition and current resolution is to ensure that her parents visit the 4 dhams in the coming year. She is desperately waiting for Ashok bhaiya to return from Pune so that all the 4 siblings can together see off their parents to the pilgrimage.

Trilok Jaiswal (50)
Trilok is Jagdish's younger brother. After father's death at a very young age, his older brother Jagdish devoted himself to earning for the family and it was his singlehanded efforts that Trilok received his education and a living in form of a new business which Jagdish set up for him. For his sake, Jagdish sacrificed his childhood, his business and his family's comfort so that Trilok could lead a comfortable life. Thanks to his brother, Trilok's business of manufacturing 'agarbattis' is flourishing by the day. Unfortunately however, after getting married and success in 'agarbatti' business, he has forgotten all about his brother's contribution in his success and looks down upon his brother for being less affluent than he himself is. He is easily influenced by others and this is precisely why after his marriage to Gudiya, he got influenced by her way of life and thinking and gradually a distinct rift developed between him and his brother and Laxmi bhabhi. Now he only thinks about the well being of his wife and his two sons. Despite being financially well settled, he never bothers to help his brother even in his difficult times and in fact likes to participate in the exhibitionism of wealth that his wife revels in. Hence, his part of the house is well equipped with luxuries like a big fancy LCD TV, AC, polished furniture etc., to the extent that much of what he possesses is not out of necessity but out of the desire to showoff. He is very soft and sweet from appearance but is very cunning from inside. The only reason why he is still putting up with his brother in the same house is because the property is yet to be legally distributed.

Gudiya Jaiswal (45)
Gudiya Jaiswal, Trilok's wife is known in the family as Guddi Chachi. She is a negative character but the kind who evokes laughter. She is fat, lazy, cunning and someone who spends most of her time whining and complaining. She is the main source of the inundation of negativity in the house. After seeing her husband succeed in business, she lost her marbles completely and hollow pride became her essential personality trait. Money became so dear to her that she started considering Jagdish and Laxmi liabilities. She often wonders why is it still so necessary to live with them under the same roof when they are prosperous now and can afford a far better house than this one. If she had her way, Jaiswal family would long back have been several nuclear families but it was Jagdish and Laxmi's efforts and goodwill that succeeded at keeping the family intact. But Gudiya doesn't like the current arrangement much and blames her consequent lowered status on them. Gudiya has influenced her husband Trilok who is now entirely on her side and almost hypnotically listens to whatever she has to say against them. Because Laxmi is a simple innocent woman, there is no question of competition with her but there is ardent rivalry between her and the daughters in law of Jagdish and Laxmi. They bicker, they squabble, they argue and she often emerges a winner when she insists her husband on buying new expensive stuff for the house merely to showoff and to make them jealous. She buys mouthwatering and expensive food items, eats it in front of them but doesn't offer it to their kids. Neither her nor Trilok had any desire of visiting the four dhams but they did anyway just to humiliate Jagdish and Laxmi and make them feel inferior to them. If they had wanted, they could have taken Jagdish and Laxmi along but they didn't and in fact brought back a lot of photos and souvenirs to show to the house members and evoke envy. She loves her two sons, Aman and Chirag a lot but this love is reserved for those two alone; she doesn't like any of Jagdish's children or grandchildren.

KeshavJaiswal (22)
Trilok and Gudiya's older son. He is studying medicine in Bangalore. He is currently not living in the family; only referred to.

Chirag Jaiswal (20)
Trilok and gudiya's younger son. He is studying engineering in Bangalore. He is currently not living in the family; only referred to.

Swayam (23) (Lead)
Dev, the hero of our story, lives in Ujjain. A handsome young man, he is nice, caring and tough from within. He respects elders like his own parents and has seen a lot of tough times and undergone incredible trauma since the age of 5. As a child, he lived in a small village in Madhya Pradesh with his parents. When he was only 5, there was a flood in his village which wiped the village clean. When he regained his senses, he found himself in a relief camp where he was burning up in high fever. He told about his parents to the Govt. authorities but no one around had a clue. After a few days, he was left at an orphanage from where he was later adopted by a Christian couple who could not conceive. All three now live quite happily and contentedly in Ujjain. The Christian couple have accepted him as his own but never compelled him to adopt Christianity as they knew that he is a Hindu child. A lot of times, he wakes up with a start from his sleep when the same incident plays itself as a terrible nightmare. Even today, he remembers and wants to meet his long lost parents and siblings.

He has finished his studies and now works in a big company as a sales marketing executive for which he is required to travel quite a bit. When he is on an official trip to Dwarka, he saves the life of a blind lady. It later turns out that the lady is Laxmi Jaiswal, Shraddha's mother. This is how he meets Shraddha and becomes friends with her. He admires Shraddha deep love and respect for her parents and eventually falls in love with her.

Kids

Ankur (8)
Santosh and Namrata's eldest son and the oldest grandchild in the family. He studies in an English medium school. His grandparents and aunt, Shraddha adore him and shower him with their love.

Khushboo (6)
Santosh aur Namrata's daughter and the only granddaughter in the family. She too studies in an English medium school. Being the only granddaughter in the family, is immensely loved by her grandparents and aunt Shraddha. She is lovingly called Baby by the family.

Sunil Mathew(55)
Sunil Mathew is a Catholic middle aged guy living in Ujjain. He is simple, fun loving, kind hearted man who likes to josh around and very fond of dance and music. Despite being a Catholic and an ardent follower, being in a city like Ujjain, his lifestyle is much like that of the Hindi speaking community. However, being a Catholic he regularly attends the Sunday mass.
Although regretful of not having a child of his own, he has pretty much buried his pain and accepted Devas his own. However, he is deeply affected by the tragedy of Alankar's childhood and hopes that Alankar's real parents meet him some day soon. In a way, he is fulfilling the responsibility of being a good guardian and is ready to hand his son over when situation demands it.

Sunita Mathew(50)
Just like her husband, she is kind hearted, caring, god fearing, a simple woman and very religious. She goes to church regularly. They speak Hindi at home but the house bathes in a certain Catholic atmosphere. Her regret of not being able to give birth has been completely effaced by the presence of Devin her life.

Characters Who Meet Shraddha And Her Parents During The Dham Yatra

Dipen & Saloni Mehta
They are the rich and famous couple of Rajkot. They are nice people and lead a modern life. Their only son is settled abroad along with his wife. The Mehta couple is now spending a retired life in Rajkot. When he learns about Shraddha's struggle and her desire, he decides that they too would accompany her to the four dhams.

Rishi Sachitanand (45)
Rishi Sachitanand is a 'Sanyasi'. He is a highly educated and a scholarly man. He knows a lot about religion, life and philosophy and comes across as an extremely intelligent and a philosophical person. He has renounced materialistic pleasures for the last 10 years and is living a Sanyasi's life now. He has already been to the two dhams namely Rameshwaram and Jagannath Puri and now is on the way to the third; Dwarka. After finishing all the four dhams, he wishes to settle down at Haridwar Hrishikesh and live a life of meditation.

Tulsi Das (50) & Radha Das (45)
They are both very jovial and fun loving people. They spend most of their time joking around and making fun of each other. Tulsi Das is paralysed in one leg and neglected by his children. Both have now left for the four dhams where Radha takes extra care of her husband due to his paralysis. Dwarka is their first dham where they meet Shraddha and become close friends. On reaching Kedarnath Badrinaath, a miracle happens. Due to all the excitement and positivity, Tulsi's handicap vanishes.

Anand (25) & Bobby (22)
This young newly married couple is based in Pune. Anand is a writer and wants to write a book on 4 dhams. Bobby is a modern girl who doesn't believe in God. Bobby is accompanying him because she likes to explore new places for their novelty rather than religious significance. They reach Dwarka where they happen to meet Shraddha. After meeting her, Anand decides to go visit all the four dhams for a richer experience. Anand during his journey goes about noting down his experiences and asking questions to all these people he has become quite friendly with. Bobby, who is an atheist, experiences a certain gradual change within herself as she goes on and after the completion of all four dhams, she is a different person altogether.