Zee Bangla brings the sweetness back to Bengal’s entertainment platter with Mithai – launching on 4th Jan

Bengal, known for its rich culture and heritage of sweets, has witnessed an evolution. With the rise of consciousness around health and innovation in sweet making, the traditional sweets of Bengal are dying a slow death much like the culture of joint families which are slowly losing relevance in today’s fast paced lifestyles.

Zee Bangla, a connoisseur of the cultural elements has always pioneered Bengal’s indigenous ingredients and revived intricacies of Bengal’s heritage so that they don’t become extinct. A classic example of the same is bringing back the folk and kirtan forms into its mega musical reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa which so beautifully emphasises the brand promise – ‘Notun Chonde Likhbo Jibon’. And with its new launch – Mithai, the brand has embarked on a journey to revive the lost traditional sweets that Bengal was once famous for.

Mithai is a warm, ‘mishti story’ of going back to the roots, celebrating family values and rituals.

Many sweet businesses have adapted themselves to the modern demand, but there are many business owners who are holding the fort, sticking to the traditions and still wooing people with their delicacies.

This is a story of such a business family which has stood strong for over 50 years and on this date and instead of following the herd it’s staying true to self. The Modak family, residing in South Kolkata, is known for its traditional Bengal sweets and has many franchises across Kolkata. The business is three generations old having started by Shri Siddheswar Modak. They are a joint family celebrating relationships and every occasion in the true sense. But Siddhartha, the current generation of the family had a difficult childhood with losing his mother at a young age and staying away from the family for an impressionable amount of time. He has grown up dreaming of going beyond and doing things of his own. He is the modern-day health-conscious man who doesn’t like sweets and has no interest in being part of the family business.

While our male lead has a worldly outlook, our female protagonist Mithai comes from the rural Bengal - Mithai was born to a sweet-making karigar family and is a karigar herself. She makes delicious ‘monohara’ sweet and comes to Kolkata every day to sell them. On one such day, she is introduced to the Modak family. As she immediately wins everyone’s hearts, she takes up a challenge to get Siddharth loving her sweets. Thereon, she embarks on a journey to bring Siddharth back to the family beliefs and take the business to greater heights.

The concept is entirely developed and produced in house and directed by Rajendra Prasad Das and written by Shaswati Ghosh.

Mithais’ character is played by Soumitrisha Kundu, a fast learner, who has acquired the skills of mishti making from ‘moiras’ (sweet-artisans) for this role and the male lead Siddharth is played by Adrit Roy who has previously appeared in films.

This show will revisit many forgotten parts of Bengali culture specially sweets like monohara and showcase the rooted nostalgia of a joint family. It will also have an eternal love story following the most basic and relatable concept of human relationships- opposites attract via portrayal of two sides of Bangaliyana - the urban and the traditional.

Samrat Ghosh, cluster head - East, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. says, as a brand, we are deeply rooted in Bengali values and cultures – and we put continuous effort to bring it alive both in our fiction and non-fiction offerings into new rhythm. Our nonfiction shows like SaReGaMa have successfully re-orchestrated the Bengali music form such as folk into new rhythm and fiction shows like Krishnakali have bought back the glory of Kirtan into new rhythm. We are sure that such efforts of ours would help our viewers to relive and reconnect with the strong culture and value of Bengalis. To continue this legacy forward, we are launching another new fiction show named Mithai. It is a story of Bengali culture of “togetherness” in staying in a joint family, a story of exhibiting strong family values, a story of sharing happiness and sweetness– and all these will centre around in a revival story of a traditional mishti called ‘Monohara’ through our upcoming fiction called ‘Mithai’, the romantic sweetness.

Welcome Bengal’s sweetest tale into your hearts and homes from 4th January, Mon-Sat 8 PM.

(We got this information in a press release).