Hum Paanch (TV series)

Hum Paanch (Hindi: हम पाँच, English: "We Five") was an Indian sitcom that first aired in 1995.^[1] It ran until 1999. The series returned for a second season in 2005^[2] and ran until mid-2006.^[3] It is regarded as one of the all-time favourite comedies along with Dekh Bhai Dekh. The lead actors of the show — Ashok Saraf, Vidya Balan, Rakhee Tandon, Bhairavi Raichura, Vandana Pathak — gained overnight stardom and became iconic TV actors.

Awards

In 2010 Hum Paanch got the Amar Rishtey Award for best comedy serial in the Zee Rishtey Awards.

Plot and family

Hum Paanch is the story of a middle-class white-collar worker, Anand Mathur, who always finds himself in trouble because of his five daughters — Meenakshi, Radhika, Sweety, Kajal, and Chhoti. The three elder daughters are Anand and his first wife's children. The last two are Anand and Bina's daughters.

• Anand Mathur attended Kallubhai Lallubhai Koylawala Municipal School in his childhood and later on received his B.A. with excellent scores (first class). He works as a sales representative in a medicine factory. Anand Mathur married his second wife, Bina Mathur, on 17 January.
• Bina Mathur is from a village called Baliya. Her complete name is Binadevi Anandkumar Janardhan Prasad Mathur. When Anand Mathur went to Bina's house for her hand in marriage, his three elder daughters were with him. According to Bina, she married Anand because the three daughters hurt her ego and she wanted to exact revenge on them. Upon seeing her for the first time, Meenakshi compared Bina to a loudspeaker who would create sound pollution in their lives. Radhika saw Bina as actress Mala Sinha portraying an illiterate woman in a movie. Sweety said that Bina would lose the title of Miss Uttar Pradesh, even if Bina was the only contestant. After marrying Anand, Bina fell in love with her stepdaughters and forgot her woes. Later, Bina reveals to her daughters that her first love was Abhi who left her to go work in a diamond mine in Africa which is another reason she married Anand.
• Meenakshi, the eldest daughter, is a feminist.
• Radhika is intelligent, nerdy and geeky. She uses a hearing aid and has a habit of bumping into doors, walls, statues, people, etc.
• Sweety is a beauty without brains, whose sole purpose in life is to get married to Shahrukh Khan and become an actress or a model. She feels that it is only her duty to open the house door whenever the doorbell rings. Sweety has a disciple, Babli, who adores and worships her. Babli is Anand Mathur's boss, Popatlal's daughter. Sweety authored the novel Goddess of Big Things with the help of Babli.
• Kajal is a tomboy who wishes she was born a boy.
• Chhoti, the youngest, is a gossip-monger. She is hailed as an incarnation of actress Meena Kumari by the people of Baliya and has a temple dedicated to herself.

Together, the five girls plan to do something new in every episode. Anand's first wife, who is dead, speaks to him through her portrait on the living room wall; his second wife, Bina, generally supports the daughters' ideas. The show was a runabout success, helping to establish Zee TV.

When the show returned for a second season, Anand had returned from a long stay in the United States. Meenakshi and Radhika were married, Meenakshi was married to Purush whom she treats as a servant and shouts at. Radhika is married to Daljeet Singh whom the other sister's call 'Pape'. He is a scientist and invents many things which get the girls into trouble. He has a forgetfulness problem — he forgets people's names and basic things. Meenakshi's daughter is known as Damini, and Radhika's daughter's name is Gudiya.^[4]

Cast

Season One

• Ashok Saraf as Anand Mathur
• Priya Tendulkar as Anand's first wife
• Shoma Anand as Bina Mathur
• Vandana Pathak as Meenakshi Mathur #1
• Kavita Rathod as Meenakshi Mathur #2 (replacing Vandana Pathak)
• Ritu Deepak as Meenakshi Mathur #3 (replacing Kavita Rathod and Vandana Pathak)
• Neelam Sagar as Meenakshi Mathur #4 (replacing Ritu Deepak)
• Amita Nangia as Radhika Mathur #1
• Vidya Balan as Radhika Mathur #2 (replacing Amita Nangia)
• Sujata Sanghamitra as Radhika Mathur #3 (replacing Vidya Balan)
• Rakhee Tandon as Sweety Mathur
• Bhairavi Raichura as Kajal Mathur aka Kajal Bhai
• Priyanka Mehra as Chhoti #1
• Aishwarya Duggal as Chhoti #2 (replacing Priyanka Mehra)
• Anna Khan as Chotti #3 ( replacing Aishwarya Duggal)
• Aruna Sangal as Pooja
• Jatin Kanakia as Sunil
• Suchitra Bandekar as Babli
• Rajendra Nath / Jeetendra Bharadwaj as Popatlal, Aanand's boss

Season Two

• Ashok Saraf as Anand Mathur
• Sudha Chandran as Anand's first wife
• Shoma Anand as Bina Mathur
• Vandana Pathak as Meenakshi Mathur
• Pamela Mukherjee as Radhika Mathur
• Rakhee Tandon as Sweety Mathur
• Bhairavi Raichura as Kajal Mathur aka Kajal Bhai
• Pushtiie Shakti as Chhoti
• Suchitra Bandekar as Babli
• Aruna Sangal as Pooja
• Sharad Sharma as Kadar bhai

Crew

Season One

• Producers: Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor,
• Directors: Kapil Kapoor & Rajat Rawail
• Composer: Shreerang Aras
• Story, Screenplay, Dialogues: Imtiaz Patel
• Director of Photography: C. Vignesh
• Editor: Ajay Bhave

Season Two

• Producers: Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor
• Directors: Sameer Kulkarni, Raju Parsekar & Rajan Waghdhare
• Composer: Lalit Sen
• Story, Screenplay, Dialogues: Imtiaz Patel
• Director of Photography: Sanjay Memane
• Editor: Vikas Sharma & Rani Singh

References

External links

• Hum Paanch information page at Balaji Telefilms
• Hum Paanch at the Internet Movie Database