| Genre: | Soap opera |
| Based On: | Gopurangal Saivathillai |
| Screenplay: | Sinoj Nedungolam |
| Director: | Sudheer Babu Faisal Adimali / Divyadarshan |
| Creative Director: | Ganesh |
| Country: | India |
| Language: | Malayalam |
| Num Seasons: | 2 |
| Num Episodes: | 915 |
| Producer: |
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| Cinematography: | Suneesh Palodu/ Prijith |
| Editor: | Anandhu Sheena/ Amal Sreenu/ Sangeetha Thripalavaloor |
| Camera: | Multi-camera |
| Runtime: | 20-25 minutes |
| Company: | PM Productions Kalidasa Video Division |
| Network: | Surya TV |
| Related: | Sundari |
Sundari is an Indian Malayalam-language soap opera which has two seasons. It airs on Surya TV and digitally through Sun NXT. The show portrays the life of a village belle who faces discrimination and abuse based on skin colour and aspires to assert that character is important than skin colour.[1] The first season aired from 15 November 2021 to 11 February 2024. The second season aired from 12 February 2024 to 21 July 2024. It began as a remake of the Kannada language series Sundari[2] [3]
The plot of the story revolves around a lower middle-class girl, Sundari, who lives in a village and is often judged and treated by other villagers with inequality due to her dark skin tone. She is academically bright and aspires to become an IAS officer. Unfortunately, Sundari's father's close friend whom she considers as her own maternal uncle, Krishnan bring her an alliance in order to protect her name from the villager's accusation that she has eloped with a guy. But in a contradiction, she was admitted in hospital due to an accident while attending her examination.
Sundari's prospective groom is Karthik, Krishnan's brother-in-law, who runs his own advertising agency. Karthik believes that Sundari is not a compatible partner to him and is also in love with another woman named Vaiga, but agrees to the marriage due to his respect for Krishnan. But he does lot of tricks behind his family's back to stop the marriage but eventually fails.
After marriage, Karthik unwillingly brings Sundari with him to the city. Karthik always degrades Sundari's qualification and insults her intelligence without knowing the fact that she's a school and college topper. He thinks she knows nothing about the world as she comes from rural area. Soon Karthik leave Sundari alone and goes to Vaiga and marry her. Few months later, Karthik decides to create one plot to stay with Vaiga forever without any troubles. So he lied to his whole family that he has a dream to earn money working abroad. His friend and elder sister knows the truth, but they agreed to protect Karthik because of his manipulative nature.
Sundari also gets attached to her land lady and her granddaughter who lost her parents at a young age looks up to Sundari as her mother. Few months later, Sundari and Vaiga gets closer after Sundari saves Vaiga's mother, Vaidehi from Asphyxiation after being locked in the car. Vaiga brings Sundari home as a caretaker for her mother who got paralyzed while finding some hunch about Karthik. Vaidehi is always suspicious about Karthik and acts sick to find the truth about him along with Sundari's help. Time passes through like this, Vaiga comes up with job offer for Sundari at her office noticing her intellectual skills and knowledge. Sundari works for Vaiga and has become very close to Vaidehi. She is being lovingly called as Collector Amma by her office colleagues and Vaiga. Karthick does not know that "Collector Amma", who Vaiga always talks about is actually Sundari. Sundari goes to her IAS coaching classes as well and there she meets a new friend named Siddarth. He is like a well wisher for her and a good friend too. Siddharth is a very kind and helping nature person as he always drops Sundari home and sometimes he motivates her whenever she seems so down.
Years Later, Sundari became IAS officer and she lives with her grandmother and Mazha. She tries to destroy all inequalities and problems in the society.
Debutant Anjali was cast as the protagonist, while Yuva Krishna played the male lead. Veteran Seema G. Nair was also part of the cast.[5] Anjali was replaced post her marriage. She later accused that she wasn't informed of her replacement and that her remuneration was still pending.[6] [7]
| Language | Title | Original release | Network(s) | Last aired | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kannada | Sundari ಸುಂದರಿ | 11 January 2021 | Udaya TV | 12 August 2023 | Original |
| Tamil | Sundari சுந்தரி | 22 February 2021 | Sun TV | Ongoing | Remake |
| Bengali | Sundari সুন্দরী[8] | 19 July 2021 | Sun Bangla | 11 June 2023 | |
| Telugu | Sundari సుందరి[9] | 23 August 2021 | Gemini TV | Ongoing | |
| Marathi | Sundari सुंदरी | 17 October 2021 | Sun Marathi | 29 June 2024 | |
| Malayalam | Sundari സുന്ദരി | 15 November 2021 | Surya TV | 21 July 2024 |