Kasautii Zindagi Kay (Star Utsav)

Infobox Television
show_name = Kasautii Zindagii Kay


caption = A still from the opening credits of "Kasautii Zindagii Kay".
format = Drama
picture_format = 480i (SDTV),
runtime = approximately 24 minutes
creator = Balaji Telefilms
director = Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor
starring = see below
opentheme = "Kasautii Zindagii Kay" by BALAJI
country = IND
network = STAR Plus
first_aired = 2004
last_aired = Present (Star Utsav)
num_episodes = 1350+ (repeated)
website = http://starplus.indya.com/serials/kasautii/index.html

Kasautii Zindagii Kay (Devanāgarī: कसौटी ज़िंदगी के) was an Indian Hindi daily soap opera from Balaji Telefilms on STAR Plus.

Cast

The Early Years

Anurag Basu (Cezzane Khan) and Prerna Sharma (Shweta Tiwari) are the children of two great friends. Both their fathers hoped that one day their children would get married. However, the children have other ideas. Yet one day, they meet in college and slowly fall in love and are no longer so against the idea of marriage. Anurag's mother Mohini however does not want her son to marry Prerna who is from a poorer family. Anurag and Prerna consummate their love, but soon afterwards Anurag is forced to marry Komolika by his mother ,Prerna discovers she is pregnant. She delivers a son and names him Prem. Anurag and Komolika realise that Komolika is pregnant but aborts the child. Soon afterwards, Komolika's is shown to be a deceitful woman whose only interest is in the Basu fortunes. She also has another husband Anurag doesn't know about! Anurag divorces her and she vows to take revenge from both Anurag and Prerna.
Mr. Rishabh Bajaj is a very rich businessman who is very handsome, shrewd and self-centred. Prerna and Anurag decides to marry again. Komolika takes over anurag's property with Bajaj's help. Anurag and his family are left with nothing. Prerna requests Mr Bajaj to have mercy on Anurag. He agrees, but puts a bizarre condition- she will have to marry him(on paper). Prerna isn't confident about anurag's abilities to get back his lost fortune, so she marries Rishabh Bajaj. After marriage, she finds out that Rishabh has three children from his ex-wife and the reason why he married Prerna is that he wants someone to look after them. Prerna soon develops affection for his three children, Vishaka, Tushal and Kuki, who is blind. The three children also treat her like their mother. While Rishabh is behaving selfishly and rudely to her, she keeps on caring for him, and doing duties of a wife and mother. Due to this, Rishabh starts liking her, and she manages to bring about some change in him, she teaches him about being kind, family-oriented, helpful, enjoying simple things in life, etc. Mr. Bajaj's ex wife comes into the picture and she tries to murder Mr. Bajaj through a car accident. She nearly succeeds and everyone thinks he is dead. Bajaj's kids request Prerna to marry anurag. Mr Bajaj's ex-wife lies to Prerna that Mr Bajaj never divorced her so Prerna and Mr Bajaj's marriage was not real. Prerna marries anurag and the couple stays happily. However, Prerna still misses her stepchildren and often neglects her family responsibilities to be with them. Meanwhile Komolika comes back and marries Anurag's cousin Shubroto (who is secretly jealous of his older brother). It is also revealed that Mr. Bajaj is not dead; his ex-wife keeps this a secret from everyone. He comes back, still in love with Prerna but a better man. However, Anurag does not believe him but Prerna does. She helps him like a friend and takes care of his children. This causes Anurag to be jealous. Their fights reach a new height when Prem is kidnapped and Mr. Bajaj is wrongly accused of his kidnapping (the real kidnapper is Subroto, Anurag's cousin). Anurag and Prerna finally get Prem back. However, he is extremely ill and dies. Prerna, at this point, gets pregnant again but Anurag claims that she cheated on him and says that it is actually Mr. Bajaj's child. Anurag and Prerna get divorced with each blaming the other for Prem's death.
Anurag now has a new woman in his life, his secretary, Aparna. She is a sweet and innocent woman. His mother hastens to marry Anurag to Aparna. Prerna now lives with Mr. Bajaj and goes to the wedding, where it is revealed that both she and Anurag have feelings for each other. Soon afterwards, Prerna gives birth to a daughter, Sneha.
Anurag at first believes that Sneha is his daughter but a faked DNA test proves otherwise and some photographs of Bajaj and Prerna together. Anurag, angry at this, has sex with his new wife, Aparna. It turns out that Komolika switched DNA reports and showed Anurag fake photos told by Bajaj. Prerna goes to the Panchmeshwar with her baby girl.

First lapse of 8 years
Eight years pass, Prerna returns to Mumbai with an eight-year-old Sneha who is the apple of her eye. Mr. Bajaj also adores the child. Precious, cute and funny Sneha goes to school in Mumbai where she meets a girl called Diya. Meanwhile Anurag and Prerna also meet each other but Prerna does not tell him about his daughter. Diya, is in effect, Anurag's niece. Sneha soon goes to the Basu House with Diya where everyone there adores her. As she reveals her name to be Sneha Sharma, nobody guesses her to be Anurag's daughter. Anurag, who is depressed by his son's death has withdrawn into a shell but is soon won over by his daughter who resembles him in many ways. Diya and Sneha go to a summer camp, where parents are allowed, but as neither girls' mother can go, Anurag goes with them. Anurag bonds with Sneha who reminds him both of himself and the love of his life, Prerna. One day, he is shocked to learn that Sneha does not know who her father is. Very soon after that, Sneha misses her mother and wants her to come to the summer camp; Prerna agrees. She is shocked to find Anurag there and even more to see that her daughter knows him very well and adores him. Even Anurag is shocked to find out that the child he has grown to love is actually the proof of his wife's infidelity.
They go back to Mumbai where Sneha finds out that her father is Anurag, she goes to meet him but he dismisses her claim and humiliates her. She leaves his house, crying. In an attempt to console her, Prerna says that her father is actually, Mr. Bajaj. Hurt by Anurag's rejection, Prerna becomes engaged to Mr. Bajaj so that her daughter can have a father.
Soon she finds out that Sneha has leukemia and the only thing that can cure her is the bone marrow of her full sibling. As Prem is dead and Anurag and Prerna have no other children, Prerna swallows her pride and asks Anurag for help. Another DNA test reveals that Anurag is indeed Sneha's father but even his bone marrow is not exact. Now Prerna and Anurag, each committed to another person, have to conceive another child to save the life of their most treasured possession. Around this time, it is also revealed that Komolika kidnapped Prem, Anurag and Subrato evict her from their house. Aparna convinces Anurag to go back to Prerna and Mr. Bajaj does the same to Prerna. Anurag and Prerna spend a night at Panchmeshwar and Prerna gets pregnant. Soon afterwards, Aparna's first husband enters the picture; he helps Aparna kill Anurag on Karwa Chuth night. Prerna is devastated and she sees Anurag everywhere. Aparna, who inherits all of Anurag's property, threatens to throw everyone out. It is soon revealed that Aparna's ex-husband actually saves Anurag's life. Anurag is actually alive. Prerna and Sneha also find out and they keep this a secret from everyone and Anurag appears as a ghost to torture Aparna who finally confesses to a roomful of reporters.

After Rishabh Bajaj finds that Anurag is alive, he thinks Prerna doesn't love him, so he breaks his engagement with her and detaches himself from her. He also tries to be rude to her thinking that if he is rude, she would hate him and can marry anurag and be happy. But what he doesn't know is- Prerna is madly in love with him and even risks her life (and that of her unborn child) for Rishabh's sake. Prerna realises that all this while since past many years, she has been in love with Rishabh and even he is in love with her. Anurag loves Prerna and wants to marry her but when he finds out that she loves Rishabh Bajaj, he gracefully accepts it, and decides to be a good friend to Prerna and tries his best to unite the two lovers, with the help of Vishakha and sneha. Later on, Prerna gives birth to a son called Prem. Rishabh Bajaj gets into a brief relationship with a lawyer called Madhvi- who is his ex-wife's sister. Eventually,Prerna and Rishabh Bajaj patch up and get married and live happily with each other. Soon afterwards, Komolika gets Anurag's father killed. Prerna gets pregnant again. Anurag's ex-wife has a son-Shravan with Debu. Since Debu dies while saving Anurag, Shravan stays with Anurag.

During her godh bahrai (baby blessing) ceremony, Prerna gives the year old Prem to Anurag who by mistake gave Prem to Komalika who kidnapped her. Prerna is livid when she finds out and claims she never wants to see him again. Anurag is very guilty and goes abroad along with Shravan.

Timing

* In India, it plays in the time slot, which is between 8.00 - 8.30 pm on Star Utsav.