Mishri

Mishri (transl. Rock sugar) is an Indian Hindi-language television drama series that premiered on 3 July 2024 on Colors TV and streams digitally on JioCinema. Produced by Story Square Productions, it stars Shruti Bhist, Namish Taneja and Megha Chakraborty.^[1][2] It is the first Hindi adaptation of Colors Kannada series Lakshmi Baramma.^[3][4]

‘Mishri’ revolves around the tumultuous tale of three individual people—Mishri Sharma, Raghav Dwivedi and Vaani Tripathi as a divine thread of fate interconnects their lives together in a way that is weaved by God itself, ensuing their own beliefs and wishes to entangle in a golden mesh of an unwanted wedlock, betrayal, companionship and devotion.

The story is set in the sublime city of Mathura and begins in the village of Gangapur, with Mishri Sharma (Shruti Bhist), a young sparkle of hope and goodwill who’s destined to be the harbinger of luck and good fortune for everyone around her. Her father, Hari Sharma, having lost his wife shortly after Mishri’s birth, is a torchbearer of life for her. He gifts her a pen which symbolises the promise that when she’ll grow up, she will study tooth and nail and someday become a high officer to fulfil her father’s dreams. However, in a pitiless twist of fate, in order to save her prized pen, Mishri loses her father but at the same time, she’s alone able to save multiple lives at a tender age. Thus, since the day, the fellow villagers begin to celebrate her as a golden child who proved to be a silver lining for others.

Years later, Mishri’s grown to be a simple young girl with an ambition to complete her father’s dreams still shining bright in her doe eyes. She lives with her grandmother in Bela’s house, an overbearing and abusive lady coveting the lands and property left in Mishri’s name by her father. Bela has a devious brother, Shakti, who eyes Mishri as a golden ticket in wait to be stolen and is voted to be the village’s head all due to the good fortune of Mishri’s existence and the brother-sister-duo misuse the same blessing with no mercy. When Bela learns about Mishri’s relentless pursuit of education for a deep-rooted goal, she brutally attempts to shut all the doors of opportunity and freedom on her. Crying to her fate, Mishri regresses to believe that her ambition is futile and no matter how hard she tries, she is never able to fulfil her father’s last wishes and neither level up to Bela’s expectations for her. Nonetheless, her grandmother uplifts her by assuring that there has to someone in the world who’ll be her protector and fight for her rights and dreams against the whole world by her side no matter what.

Hailing from a high and urban family of Mathura, Raghav Dwivedi (Namish Taneja) is a perfect catch. He’s a happy-go-lucky, young gentleman who strives to heed everyone’s happiness around him. Having lost his father at a tender age, his life bends towards his mother, Parvati. Despite of responsibilities and obligations laden onto his sturdy back, he longs to be the catalyst of his family’s peace and tries to resolve every littlest knots that are spiralled around the bitter hearts of his family members, also some which are unknown to him. Succeeding in directing major roles in the family business also comes to a great cost to him as Chitra, his paternal aunt, secretly has a seed of greed and indignation sown deep in her heart for her supposedly beloved nephew. Being an equal partners with Raghav in their tours and travels business, she hides an agenda of desiring something bigger behind the mask of her sweetness for which she won’t stop at anything — even if it means to claim her nephew’s life. But Raghav, being the ultimate family guy, blindly returns his genuine love and consideration for the Dwivedi family.

On the other hand, Raghav’s one and only is a woman of unique boldness, Vaani Tripathi (Megha Chakraborty). Married to her work as a fashion designer, Vaani’s priorities are steely and unshakable. She still remains etched to the grief of losing her younger sister, Meenu, to a terminal illness but with Raghav by her side, her sanity and trauma is tamed alongside their possessive but healthy relationship. Eager to initiate their wedding proposal to their families, Vaani and Raghav often fall into some light conflictions which always end in a promise by Raghav that he’d soon talk to his mother once the Dwivedi family mends fences with their issue concerning the idea of a love marriage. Unbeknownst to them, the problem with the concept of love marriages into the family had stemmed from the connection of Vaani and Raghav’s mothers only and despite of so many years of the ordeal, Sulochana and the whole family still are adamant to solve things between them and Vaani’s mother, Kalpana — where Sulochana wanted Kalpana as his son’s wife and her daughter-in-law but Anirudh instead married Parvati, whom he loved. Nonetheless, Kalpana is still unable to turn the page and forgive Dwivedi family for breaking their promise as they turn up to her threshold to invite her to the marriage anniversary of Raghav’s grandparents. In turn, she strikes a condition for her participation and that is ensuring Parvati doesn’t attend the same event to which Sulochana heartily agrees. Upon knowing this, Vaani is enraged and vows to never forgive the family who’s hurt her mother even if Kalpana is ready to bury the hatchet.

On the other hand, Mishri’s troubled grandmother contrives a plan to save her from Bela’s continual tortures and to secure her educational future. In return of Mishri’s determined part in the village’s events of good fortune, Mishri’s grandmother entreats to the villagers to marry Mishri to an ideal city boy who keeps her happy as she firmly believes that marrying a prince is written in the spirited Mishri’s fate. Bela and Shakti are agitated by the sudden announcement.

Parvati is hellbent on eliminating the fatal flaw in Raghav’s horoscope by any means and for that, she takes him to a holy temple of Gangapur. Vaani also reminds Raghav to fetch some of Gangapur’s pier water for her as it is believed that if the blessed water from there is anointed on a couple, then their love becomes eternal like that of Radha and Krishna. However, through a surreal stroke of destiny, as Mishri bumps into Raghav, the blessed water bestows upon them together and thus entwines them in a fate strung with each other but the both of them are oblivious to the signs. As Parvati presents Raghav’s horoscope and picture to a priest, she learns that he’s plagued with the same affliction in his fate as his father, Anirudh who died in an perplexing accident. Just like his father, Raghav is destined to die a mysterious and inexplicible death as people who are closest to him are baying for his blood but the only way to prevent it is a human shield who is bound to protect him from every harm written in his destiny. In the temple, as Mishri prays for her grandmother’s good health, she encounters a breathless Parvati on the steps without an inhaler, suffering an asthma attack and saves her life but Raghav is unable to meet and thank his mother’s saviour who is supposedly named ‘Mishri.’

Simultaneously, Bela and family are muddled as to how to thwart Mishri’s marriage from happening because with Mishri hitched and gone, their golden ticket would be scrapped and they would’ve to give up the ghosts of those lands on her name. Only then Bela hatches a grand scheme to wedlock Mishri with her depraved and aged brother, Shakti and even tries to match the mismatched horoscopes of Shakti with his half-aged girl. But as Mishri, in her sane mind, won’t agree to the proposal, they would’ve to craft a fool-proof plan to trick her and when a young city tycoon Raghav Dwivedi’s photo is misplaced between the meeting with the priest, Bela views it as a shot to slip the ball into her court. She assures Shakti that when with her delusions and tall hopes, Mishri sits alone in a wedding dress and waits for some Raghav to show up and marry her, if Shakti will step up and pretend to guard her honour by marrying her instead, their plan would be successful without a hitch.

Although initially sceptical about Bela’s false story of Raghav’s proposal for Mishri, Mishri’s grandmother likes Raghav and deems him a guy of good character by the looks of it and tries to convince Mishri for marriage but to everyone’s surprised dismay, Mishri denies to marry anyone as she is adamant to fulfil her father’s dreams and take care of her grandmother always by her side. Though after taking everyone’s advise, she reluctantly agrees but on a condition that she meets Raghav before proceeding with the wedding to learn of his views on her higher education after the wedding. Bela and Shakti deem this situation as the final burst of the bubble of their whole plan. Meanwhile, as Parvati accepts Kalpana’s condition and stays off the whole event, Raghav tries to win Kalpana’s heart to resolve the differences between the family but Kalpana, swimming deep in her rage, sees him as a perfect pawn to get revenge on Parvati as she proposes her daughter’s hand in marriage for him and asks for Dwivedi family’s cooperation in return of her forgiveness to which Sulochana gives Kalpana her word without even consulting with Raghav first.

On her way to Mathura to meet the guy in the photo in her hand, Mishri encounters Raghav on a busy street where he helps a beaten, poor boy accused to stealing items to feed his sick sister’s stomach and gives him some bills and a pen which denotes the importance of education for everyone as it’s the right every person should have. He even offers the boy to visit him in his office and discerning it all, Mishri becomes impressed by Raghav’s mature viewpoints on education and outlook of life and receives the answer she had travelled to earn from her future life partner. With heartfelt feelings growing inside her, Mishri whole-heartedly agrees to the marriage.

As the news of his wedlock with Kalpana’s daughter breaks like an angry cloud onto Raghav’s head, he blurts out the truth of his and Vaani’s three-year long relationship and his wish to marry only Vaani and nobody else. In a fit of desperation to fix a mistake she made years ago and oblivious to the fact that Vaani is indeed Kalpana’s daughter, Parvati slaps Raghav for thinking of even the notion of love marriage in his mind when it ruined Dwivedi family years ago and Raghav understands her reason but remains resolute on either marrying the person whom he loves or never anybody else. Sulochana guilt-trips Parvati into forcing Raghav’s acceptance for the proposal and Parvati is powerless to do nothing but beg Raghav to sacrifice his happiness for his mother and fulfil a filial son’s duty. Consequently, as Vaani realises that her countless rejections about marrying a son of Dwivedi’s are falling on deaf ears, she makes a decision to elope with Raghav and calls him to meet in the morning but Raghav instead takes her to his house and ascertains her that he can’t go against his family and they both have to convince them together for an approval as a last ditch effort. Kalpana and Kailash reach just in time as Raghav makes Vaani meet his family members and the whole dilemma dawns like a shower of relief onto both of the youngsters but Vaani is narked by the truth that in the end, it’s Raghav’s family who has hurt her mother in the past but keeps Raghav in the dark about her conflicted feelings because she is hesitant to ruin her hard-earned betrothal with the love of her life.

Both of the marriages are prepped with glee and pomp in Gangapur and Mathura but as fate would have it, Parvati falls ill and is unable to travel to Gangapur in order to perfom a scheduled ritual for Raghav’s security. However, Raghav vows to his mother to go there himself for the ritual and sets out for Gangapur without informing a distressed Vaani who gears up to follow him to the village. Meanwhile, Chitra views the situation as an opportune trap to finish Raghav and sends goons behind him. High on the happiest clouds, Mishri perches on the wedding altar and awaits her groom’s arrival as her grandmother overhears Bela and Shakti’s devious scheme about tricking Mishri into an unwanted wedlock and prompts an oblivious Mishri to escape. To her jovial surprise, she bumps into Raghav on the way and takes him to their wedding temple where he’s presented as a groom. An addled up Raghav refuses to ever have any connection with the problem Mishri’s facing and clarifies to Mishri that he was never going to be her groom. As Mishri realises that she’d been cheated, she exempts Raghav from every responsibility and guilt and requests him to go on his way but to save him from Chitra’s goons, she has to fake a decision about convincing him for marriage now that the damage is already done and then enables his flight.

Battling with his morality as Mishri’s grandmother begs him to rescue Mishri from a forced wedlock, Raghav returns to the temple and obstructs the marriage while disparaging Shakti’s image as a village’s head. Under immense pressure to safeguard Mishri’s life, Raghav announces his marriage with Mishri as a desperate measure and fulfils all the sacred rituals as Mishri vows to never let a catastrophe touch her husband before her. But as they set out for Mathura, Raghav makes it clear that he’s still dilemmatic about the whole fiasco and wouldn’t be able to give her the rights of a wife yet but what really breaks Mishri’s heart is when she spots Raghav engulfed in another woman’s arms and decides to step out from Raghav’s life although deeply etched with his feelings in her devoted heart.

Though destiny strikes again and Mishri crosses paths with Vaani and unknowingly finds refuge in the latter’s house only to collide into Raghav again and learn that the woman Raghav loves is her beloved informal big sister, Vaani, who has given her the place of her dead younger sister, Meenu, in her life. As the wedding shenanigans ring like the harbinger of sacrificial grief for Mishri, fate binds her as a protective shield for Raghav’s life and she must stay close to him against his wishes to guard him. But as she’s torn between the sisterhood with Vaani and affection for Raghav, Mishri must edge up to make choices now.

As the predestination signify their every move, will Mishri, Raghav and Vaani succumb to their fated dilemmas or would they tear apart their own choices and emotions to correct the wrongs in their lives?

• Shruti Bhist as Mishri Sharma: An uplifting village girl who’s deemed as a lucky charm for everyone except herself; Raghav’s wife; Vaani’s friend; Hari’s gifted daughter (2024–present)
• Namish Taneja as Raghav Dwivedi: A winsome owner of a tours and travels business plagued with a flaw in his horoscope; Mishri’s husband; Vaani’s former fiancé; Parvati and Anirudh’s son; Riddhi’s brother (2024–present)
• Megha Chakraborty as Vaani Tripathi: A daring fashion designer whose life revolves solely around her hard-edged principles and the love of her life, Raghav; Raghav’s former fiancé; Mishri’s friend; Kalpana and Kailash’s daughter (2024–present)

• Jasveer Kaur as Chitra Dwivedi: Raghav’s paternal aunt and business partner
• Archana Singh as Parvati Dwivedi: Raghav and Riddhi’s mother; Anirudh’s wife; Mishri’s mother-in-law
• Sangeeta Kapure as Kalpana Tripathi: Vaani’s mother; Kailash’s wife; Raghav’s former mother-in-law
• Manmohan Tiwari as Shakti: Bela’s brother
• Swati Chitnis as Mrs. Sharma: Hari’s mother; Mishri’s grandmother
• Meena Nathani as Sulochana Dwivedi: Raghav’s grandmother; Chitra, Supriya and Anirudh’s mother; Parvati’s mother-in-law
• Riya Sharma as Riddhi Dwivedi: Raghav’s younger sister; Parvati and Anirudh’s daughter; Mishri’s sister-in-law
• Soma Rathod as Bela: Mishri’s aunt
• Jyoti Tiwari as Supriya: Raghav’s paternal aunt; Ranjit’s wife
• Ajay Dhansu as Ranjit: Raghav’s uncle; Supriya’s husband
• Prithvi Zutshi as Raghav’s grandfather: Sulochana’s husband; Chitra, Supriya and Anirudh’s father; Parvati’s father-in-law
• Shashank Shukla as Gopal: Dwivedi family’s house help
• Amit Poddar as Bunty: Bela’s son; Bubbly’s husband; Giri’s father; Mishri’s cousin
• Tabassum as Bubbly; Bunty’s wife; Giri’s mother; Bela’s daughter-in-law; Mishri’s sister-in-law
• Rishabh Jain as Giri: Bunty and Bubbly’s son; Mishri’s nephew
• Vishesh Sharma as Samarth: College’s trustee

• Deepika Singh as Mangal Saxena from Mangal Lakshmi (2024)
• Aman Verma as Hari Sharma: Mishri’s father (2024) (Dead)

Manmohan Tiwari gained weight to fit in his role. He said, "To prepare for the negative lead in this show, I have gained weight and even grown a belly. I dye my hair daily to make myself look older and meet the character's demands. This effort is to ensure that the character stands out and truly comes to life, conveying exactly what it needs to and leaving a strong impression on the audience."^[5]