Kumkum Bhagya (transl. Vermilion In My Fate) is an Indian drama television series produced by Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms.^[2] It premiered on 15 April 2014 on Zee TV.^[3] Starring Sriti Jha and Shabir Ahluwalia, it is loosely based on Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.^[1]

The series started as the story of Pragya, Bulbul and their mother Sarla Arora's hope to see them married.

Later, the show revolved around Abhi and Pragya.

On 18 March 2019, after Abhi and Pragya's separation, a twenty-year leap was introduced.^[4] Post-leap, Mugdha Chapekar and Naina Singh are introduced as Abhi and Pragya's separated twin daughters, Prachi Arora and Rhea Mehra.^[5][6]

Pragya and Bulbul help their mother Sarla run the Kumkum Bhagya marriage hall. The series begins with a short-lived love triangle involving Pragya – Suresh – Bulbul, leading to the cancellation of Pragya's engagement with Suresh. Rockstar Abhishek "Abhi" is in a relationship with supermodel Tanushree "Tanu". Purab Khanna is Abhishek's best friend and music handler and hires Bulbul at his advertising agency. He falls in love with Bulbul despite being engaged to Abhi's sister Aliya. Aliya misunderstands that Purab is seeing Pragya and Abhi marries Pragya to keep her from ruining Aliya's relationship with Purab. Post-marriage, Pragya realizes the truth and accepts the blame to protect Bulbul. On his wedding day, Purab abandons Aliya and comes clean to everyone about his love for Bulbul. Various situations and circumstances bring Abhishek and Pragya closer. Abhi reconciles with Purab and Bulbul and gets them married. Desperate to get Abhi back, Tanu fakes a DNA report to imply that he is the father of her unborn child, which is actually the result of a one-night stand between her and Nikhil. Pragya realises the truth but suffers an accident and is declared dead, before she could reveal the truth to Abhi.

Pragya returns to exact revenge on her wrongdoers by becoming the owner of Abhi's properties.

Bulbul risks her life and dies while saving Pragya from Aliya.

The season ends with Pragya exposing Tanu and winning back Abhi's trust.

However, Abhishek gets into an accident and loses his memory.

He forgets the last two-and-a-half years of his life, including Pragya who has to leave him for his own good.

, Abhi and Pragya came across each-other once again, the meeting results to their friendship where Abhi is still unaware of who she is.

On his wedding day with Tanu, Abhi regains his memory but he soon loses Pragya for she is shot by some goons and falls into a dam.

However, after several sequences with her look alike named Munni, Pragya finally recovers from coma and reconciles with Abhi.

On the other hand, Purab and Disha's love story begins to bloom.

She proposes to him and he decides to move on from Bulbul and give their marriage a chance.

A girl named Simonika, joins Abhi's office as his secretary, she plans to take her revenge for he has killed her husband Dushyant.

In a barter, Tanu asks Simonika to spare Abhi and kill Pragya instead.

However, Simonika ends up murdering Dadi who reaches the factory before Pragya to save her life.

Both Abhi and Aliya blame Pragya for Dadi's death.

Abhi asks Pragya to leave, thus, a heart-broken and grief-stricken Pragya is shown attempting suicide by jumping off a cliff.

Abhi lives with Tanu just as a friend while Pragya is living in the UK with King Singh, a London-based rapper. She also has a daughter from Abhi, named Kiara. Abhi and Pragya hold each other responsible for Dadi's death. Abhi and King are offered a world music album and thus, the latter flies to India with Pragya and Kiara.

Kiara and Abhi meet in Delhi, where the Mehra family now lives, and become good friends.

Abhi finds out about Kiara being his daughter at Neha's wedding, Mitali and Raaj's daughter.

Abhi comes to know that King and Pragya are not married for real.

He convinces Pragya of his love and remarries her, after their marriage, Pragya expects twins.

A jealous Tanu tries to kill Pragya and her unborn babies, but Abhi, Aliya and others kick her out of the house.

King too realises his mistake and decides to protect Pragya from Tanu.

Tanu reaches out to her ex-boyfriend Nikhil and instigates him to take revenge from Abhi by murdering Pragya and her twins.

Nikhil enters Mehra mansion with the intention of killing Pragya and her twins but Kiara identifies him..

To save himself from being exposed, he changes his plan and kidnaps Kiara.

Nikhil then calls Abhi – Pragya to ask for ransom money, but eventually plans to end Kiara's life to complete his revenge which results to Pragya and Abhi blaming each-other.

It is shown that Abhi and Pragya have been separated and have each of their daughters; Pragya has the custody of Prachi and Abhi has the custody of Rhea.

Pragya left Abhi as she feels that Kiara died because of him while Abhi thinks it is because of Pragya that Kiara died.

Pragya has settled in Hoshiarpur working as college lecturer. Prachi has a friend, Shahana who lives with Pragya and Prachi and she affectionately calls Pragya Beeji. Abhi is settled in Delhi. He has a company which promotes the new young talents. Purab has married Aliya, but their married life is not a happy one. They also have a son named Aaryan. Abhi is friends with Mr.Kohli who has a son named Ranbir, a spoilt rich brat. He also goes to the same college as Rhea. Prachi gets a scholarship to study in Delhi but Pragya is reluctant to send her there because of her past. But she eventually sends Prachi and Shahana to study in Delhi. The college they get admission into happens to be the same place where Pragya and Abhi's other twin daughter, Rhea, is studying. Prachi and Abhi meet when the former's luggage is stolen. They becomes friends. As a result of attempting to rag Prachi, Rhea gets slapped by Prachi and is left humiliated in front of the entire college. At the same time Prachi dislikes Ranbir for his casanova ways. Prachi and Shahana start working part time in an event management company where their first catering job is in Abhi's house. To plan a revenge, Rhea makes it look like Prachi is a thief and gets her arrested. Hearing her arrest, Pragya returns to Delhi. However, Abhi believes Prachi is innocent and gets her released. Soon after it is revealed through the CCTV camera that Rhea was responsible for framing Prachi, for which she gets slapped by Abhi for the first time. Rhea starts hating Prachi as she feels that Prachi is stealing Abhi from her. She attempts to run over Prachi on the road but accidentally hurts Pragya. Prachi gets Rhea arrested for this but Pragya intervenes and let's Rhea go. Rhea is impressed with Pragya's attitude and slowly starts to idolise her. Rhea attempts to hurt Prachi many times like making it seem that Prachi killed her at camp, planting drugs in her bag to get her arrested (again!) but each attempt fails. For some reason Pragya does not understand that Rhea is indeed a spoilt and horrible brat while Prachi tries to justify why Rhea is bad. During all this time, Abhi and Prachi have become close as well. Abhi and Pragya meets after 20 years but he gets injured soon after. Pragya leaves immediately after saving him and donating her daughter's blood for him. She feels that Abhi will take her daughter from her. Pragya misunderstands who Abhi is as everyone calls him Mr. Mehra. She thinks that Mr. Mehra is Mr. Kohli due to many incidents. Pragya,Prachi and Shahana lives with Saritaben who lovingly calls Pragya as Anuradha (her daughter's name). This leads to a lot of confusion since everyone from Abhi's side calls Pragya as Anuradha (making Abhi also think that Prachi's mother's name is Anuradha). Rhea initially thinks that something is going on between Ranbir and Prachi but later understands that Ranbir likes her only. Rhea decides that she will accept Ranbir's proposal only if he makes Prachi fall in love with him and break her heart. Ranbir accepts to do so. During this time, there is some chemistry happening between Shahana and Aaryan. It is also shown that Purab is still in love with Disha and they separated because of misunderstandings of cheating created by Alia, where the media also gets involved. In order to save Alia's reputation, Purab marries her. It's not shown where Purab and Disha's son is. When Alia realises that Purab still only loves Disha, she attempts suicide but is saved by Purab. The doctor recommends to Purab to keep Alia happy as she can do anything with her life, otherwise. In his rush to get Alia to the hospital, Purab hits Disha's car and injures her. He saves both of them but writes his relation to Disha as husband and his relation to Alia as friend in the hospital form. He also leaves his wedding ring at Disha's hospital room. Alia becomes more and more insecure as she feels that Disha will take Purab away. She refuses to believe Disha, who is clearly not interested to get back with Purab. Abhi starts to message Pragya thinking she is Anuradha since both have heard great things about each other. They even plan to meet several times but something or the other comes up. Saritaben wants Abhi and Pragya to marry each other. But both of them don't want to since they are both clearly in love with each other. However, they don't know that the other person is themselves (confusion kids!). Again incidents come where they meet like in the Ganesh Chathurthi event but before they can even go to each other, they are inturrpted by robbers who are trying to steal the jewels laid on the statue of Ganesh.

The series is a love story^[14] produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under the banner Balaji Telefilms that airs on Zee TV. The show premiered at 09:00 pm (IST) and 10:30 pm (CAT) on Tuesday on 15 April 2014 and airs episodes from Monday to Friday. Ekta Kapoor considers the letter K to be lucky and has named many of her productions starting with K.^[15] Talking about introducing a fresh concept on prime time, Zee TV Programming Head, Namit Sharma said, "It takes one epic show to replace another, so you can imagine. It is a passionate drama of love, a far cry from regular saas-bahu soaps and has an ensemble cast of some very talented actors."^[16] Ekta Kapoor added, "While two of my shows (Pavitra Rishta and Jodha Akbar itra Rishtahas had a run of over five years now and the journey has been most gratifying for me as a producer. While the audiences who are hooked on to Pavitra Rishtawill continue to enjoy the show at 6:30 PM, Kumkum Bhagya* will open at 9 PM, drawing maximum eyeballs. It is so contemporary in its treatment that viewers will be able to instantly spot characters out of their own lives in the show. It's a story of passionate love that anyone with a soul would be able to easily relate to".^[16]

Speaking of his comeback as an actor, Shabbir Ahluwalia, the protagonist of the show says, "With me producing shows, it was getting very difficult to manage time for acting assignments. But now, I have decided to concentrate on acting. You cannot be away from what you love doing for long. The role appealed to me a great deal. This is the first time that I will be playing a rockstar on television and in order to look my part, I had to ensure that I did not just get my costume and look right, but also get that attitude right that is required to portray a rockstar onscreen."^[16]

Shabbir Ahluwalia,^[17] who was also cast in Ekta's TV Series Kayamath, was selected to portray the lead role of Abhishek Prem Mehra. Ahluwalia made his comeback after Zee 20 Cricket League. Actress Sriti Jha landed in lead role in the show.^[17] Mrunal Thakur was selected to portray the second leading role of Bulbul^[18] while Arjit Taneja was cast opposite her.^[18][19] In May 2014, Shikha Singh entered the show as the main antagonist Aliya Mehra,^[19][17][21] while Madhurima Tuli was cast to portray the negative role of Tanu. Later, Tuli had to shoot for her film Baby so, this role was later played by Leena Jumani in September 2014.^[22] Actor Faisal Rashid was selected to portray the role of Suresh (Pragya's fiancé) who played an important role in April–May 2014, but in May 2015 he quit the series.^[23] Actress Supriya Shukla was cast to play the role of Sarla Arora, while Madhu Raja played the role of Daljeet Arora. Other supporting cast members include Samiksha Bhatnagar, Ankit Mohan, Charu Mehra and Amit Dhawan. Bhatnagar, who portrayed the supporting role of Mitali was replaced by Swati Anand within the month of launch while Anurag Sharma, who also appeared in Ekta Kapoor's Pavitra Rishta, Bade Achhe Lagte Hain, Yeh Hai Mohabbatein and Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyaar replaced Amit. In 2015, Neel Motawani (who was also cast in other shows of Ekta) was selected to play the negative role of Neel; while in June 2015 Nikhil Arya entered the series playing the role of main male antagonist Nikhil Sood.^[24]

In December 2015, actress Mrunal Thakur who played the role of Bulbul opted out from the show and was to be replaced by Kajol Shrivastava, however the character of Bulbul was phased out of the series after Mrunal's departure. In August 2016, Ankit Mohan quit the show so his character left as well. In September 2016, Arjit Taneja quit the show and was replaced by Vin Rana. In October 2016, Nikhil Arya was replaced by Rujut Dahiya.^[25] In July 2017, actress Ruchi Savarn entered the show as Purab's new love interest. Mishal Raheja as King Singh and Kaurwakee Vashista as Kiara mehra entered the show after the leap. Actor Abeer Adil was cast in 2018 as King's cousin Tarun and Roma Bali as Tarun's mother.^[10]

Naina Singh and Mugdha Chapekar entered the show as the new leads after the 20 years Generation Leap.^[26] Actor Krishna Kaul plays the male lead post leap.^[27]

The series was released on 15 April 2014 on Zee TV. The series also airs on Zee TV HD and Zee TV Asia. The show was also broadcast internationally on the latter's international distribution. It airs in U.K., U.S., Reunion Island, Malaysia, Canada, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Ireland, South Africa, Indonesia, Chile, Philippines, Ghana, and Singapore on Zee TV Worldwide.^[16]

In late 2015, the app introduced their "Before TV" service where they launched *Kumkum Bhagya'*s episodes before airing on TV, new episodes where released during 5:30am (IST), the service was available on a subscription plan. Although the YouTube service was terminated, the channel still release their episodes on the Zee TV website and Zee TV app. On ZEE5 the show airs earlier than on TV.

A spin-off series Kundali Bhagya premiered on 12 July 2017. The series narrates the story of Pragya's two sisters Preeta and Srishti and their attempt to find their mother Sarla and the dynamics which lead to their acquaintance with the rich and famous Luthra family. The show stars Shraddha arya, Deeraj Dhoopar and Manit Jaura.^{[28][29][30][31]}

Kumkum Bhagya - Saawaan Mahotsav (Vermilion In My Fate- Monsoon Festival) is a special segment wherein Kumkum Bhagya characters will be seen celebrating the Saawan Mahotsav and will recreate a scene from Kuch Kuch Hota Ha i. Pragya and Abhi will be invited to Tina and Rahul's wedding. On realizing how much Anjali loves Rahul, Pragya along with Abhi, would make Rahul believe that he is actually in love with Anjali and that they both should tie the knot.

This Special episode stars Rhea Sharma, Vishal Singh, Yuvika Chaudary along with Sriti Jha and Shabbir Ahluwalhia.

Initially started with low ratings, the show climbed to Top 5 most watched shows across all GEC's.

After only a few weeks of its launch and was touted as the biggest fiction launch of 2014.^[33] The serial is very popular among Indian women.^[34] The show also gave tough fight to GEC leader Diya Aur Baati Hum that airs at same slot on Star Plus. On the reception of the show in such a short span of time, Zee TV business head Pradeep Hejmadi announced that he considered the 'wedding track' a very important inflection point for people to gravitate to the series, believing it to be attracting increasing interest in all parameters. He also added "Each story has its own promise and people who tune in are people who are bought into those promises or are keen to explore the relationships or the characters that stand out speaking to them. We concentrated on bringing out the key inflection points for the show and it was important because it is the core promise of Kumkum Bhagya."^[35]

Later, the series further raised to 13.5 million impressions (urban + rural) when the production decided to introduce Tannu's DNA report storyline.

Later in the month of August, makers introduced Abhi's memory loss twist and restarted the show which helped to maintain the ratings and dominated the first spot till October.

In the month of October 2016, Balaji Telefilms Naagin second season launched and dominated the first spot, pushed Kumkum Bhagya to second spot in BARC chart. In the month of May 2017, Kumkum Bhagya became number one show again and continued to be for few weeks, dethroning the mega success of 2017 Naagin second season. In September, Kumkum bhagya's Spin-off Kundali Bhagya, the story of Pragya's long lost sisters Preeta and Shristi became the most watched show replacing Kumkum Bhagya. Since then Kumkum Bhagya mostly stayed in second spot. Decline ratings lead makers to introduce Kumkum Bhagya: Doosri Peedhi (Translation: Vermilion in my fate: next generation) quickly in March 2019. Doosri Peedhi helps to make the show number one again in BARC week 14, 2019.^[36]

Reruns of Kumkum Bhagya premiered on Zee Anmol from 2017 and does wonder in BARC rural chart.^{[37][38][39][40][41]}

The Kumkum Bhagya Soundtrack was written by Nawab Arzoo and composed by Lalit Sen. Lalit Sen had composed the original songs and background score for the show. "Allah Waariyan" is not the song of this show but it was the theme song of Abhi and Pragya. The first original song of the show is "O Rabba Ki Karaan", audience loved the song. The sad version of this song are also released with the title "Tum Ko Mera Dard Dikhna" and "Har Ke Bhi Jitna Hai Pyaar" Sung By Kashi Malik. Meherbaanon Ka Shukriya Song was released on the occasion of completing 1000 episodes and for thanking the audience for the love and support.

All lyrics written by Nawab Arzoo; all music composed by Lalit Sen.