Bulbulay

Bulbulay
Bulbulay Poster
Genre	Sitcom
Written by	Arslan Amjad
Directed by	Arslan
Starring	Nabeel Ayesha Omar Hina Dilpazar Mehmood Aslam, Fatima Nabeel , Nyle Rizwan
Theme music composer	Faizan Khan
Opening theme	Dunya Nahi Ye Hai Bubble By Faizal Khan
Ending theme	Dunya Nahi Ye Hai Bubble
Country of origin	Pakistan
Original language(s)	Urdu
No. of episodes	250+ on going every sunday 7:30pm
Production
Executive producer(s)	Nabeel
Running time	17-25 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	ARY Digital
Original run	October 22, 2008 – present
External links
[(http://www.arydigital.tv/ Bulbulay on ARY Digital Website) Production website]

Bulbulay (Urdu: بلبلے‎, English: "Bubbles") is a family sitcom about an unconventional Pakistani family and the troubles they get into. The show is directed by Rana Rizwan and the script is written by Ali Imran. It is produced by Nabeel who is also the lead character of the show. The show gained popularity after the introduction of Hina Dilpazeer, who plays Momo, and is now the most watched sitcom in the country.

Bulbulay is broadcast in the UK on ARY Digital at the following times:

Mon-Fri 08:30, 17:30, 21:30, 23:30 Sat 08:30, 21:30 Sun 21:30

Plot

Most episodes are about Nabeel and friends being conned, robbed or just having bad luck. Every episode ends with the family being ripped off, or either of the men getting a beating from their wives for flirting with other women. The storyline starts off with Nabeel and Mehmood living in an apartment as bachelors and progresses to both of them getting married and having children. The show is known to break the forth wall all the time.

Episode 1-25 (Before marriage)

NabeelNiaz's childhood friend Ahmar moves abroad and tells Nabeel to look after his apartment. Nabeel takes advantage of this and starts living in the apartment as landlord and rents out a room to Mehmood. Khoobsoorat, who ran away from her wedding just fifteen minutes before it took place, arrives at the same apartment looking for her friend Syma who is married to Ahmar. Although Nabeel tells her she cannot move in, he changes his mind after she threatens to tell Ahmar the situation of his apartment.

When Khoobsoorat's father Siddiqui comes to take her back, she tells him that she is married to Nabeel to stop him from take her back. Similarly, when Nabeel's mother Mumtaaz comes to visit him, he says that Khoobsoorat is the housemaid, as she would not accept him living together with a woman.

Later in the series, Khubsoorat's father finds out his daughter is unmarried and informs her that he is coming to take her back home. Nabeel's mother Mumtaaz comes to visit her son and tells him that Khoobsoorat is a good girl and that they should get married. When Mumtaz asks Khubsoorat, she is shocked and decides to leave. Later, Nabeel tells Khoobsoorat that he really loves her and fell in love with her when he saw her for the fourth time (chothi nazar main) and that he wants to marry her. Elsewhere Mehmood and Mumtaz also start to like each other and want to get married. At Nabeel and Khubsoorat's marriage after their Nikkah has finished, he announces he will marry Mumtaz and tells the "Qari" to wait and read their nikkah as well. Nabeel is shocked by this and feels very uncomfortable about his mother close to Mehmood. At this moment, Siddiqui arrives to cancel his daughter's wedding. When Nabeel tells him that the nikkah is already read, he gets really angry.

Episode 26-82 (Post marriage)

(Nabeels mother becomes a regular cast member after episode 25) Soon after the couples get married, Ahmar calls Nabeel to tell him he has found someone who will move in the apartment, which meant that they had to move out. Luckily, Khubsoorat's father arranges a new place for them to live in and pays the advance so that they do not struggle. Her father regularly sorts out a job for Nabeel, but Nabeel quits because he says he is made for much bigger things and will not work for anyone who does not see his true potential.

Episode 83-87 (Bulbulay in Dubai)

Mehmood Sahab plans to use some money he saved to go on a honeymoon with his wife, without informing Nabeel and Khoobsoorat. Meanwhile, Khoobsoorat wins a contest which gives her a free ticket and hotel reservation for Dubai. So both couples depart for Dubai without informing each other. However, they end up in the same hotel, after which some events ensue involving Momo getting lost in Dubai, Nabeel cheating on Khoobsoorat and Momo becoming a radio show host. One day, while purchasing a gift for Mehmood Sahab's birthday, Mumtaz aka Momo stumbles upon a backpack containing a lot of money owned by a criminal and flees with the criminals henchman in pursuit. The criminal however kidnaps Nabeel, Khoobsoorat and Mehmood Sahab and asks Momo to return the money. Momo tricks him and the family escapes to Pakistan, but forgets the money at the airport.

Episode 88-100 (Pre-Parenthood)

After returning home from Dubai, Momo loses the bag at the airport. Khoobsoorat becomes ill and the others start avoiding her in the fear of catching her disease. Later, Khoobsorat is found out to be pregnant shortly after which Momo also becomes pregnant. Most of the episodes involve the family making preparations for the arrival of their children. Nabeel, however, is unhappy that her mother is having a baby at this age. These episodes also include their pre-parenthood lifestyle in the Holy month of Ramadhan. On the 100th Eid-Special episode Momo and Khoobsoorat give birth to a baby son and daughter, respectively.

Episode 101-139 (Parenthood)

Both the couples become parents. Mehmood Sahab and Momo name their son "Sona" which means gold and Khoobsoorat and Nabeel name their daughter Chaandi which means silver. These episodes involve events taking place after Sona and Chaandi's birth. Nabeel and Mehmood Saab, being pressurized by their wives to take up jobs and support their children, admit their children into school. The couples compete on who can provide better for their children.

Episode 140-143 (Bulbulay in Lahore)

The family races to Lahore to visit Khoobsoorat's father Siddiqui, who they cannot contact and are worried about.

Episode 143-204(Bulbulay back in Karachi)

These episodes show the daily lives of the characters, including their lifestyles in the month of Ramadan.

Episode 205-209 (Bulbulay again in Lahore)

Once again the family have returned to Karachi, In episode 205, Siddiqui takes Khoobsurat and Baytab to his new house in Karachi, but before leaving, Baytab leaves the address of the new house, then in episode 206, The fun starts.They all go to papa Siddiqui's new house.^[1]

Episode 210-217

Once again they return to Karachi.

Episode 218-260

once again they are normal with brilliant performances by MOMO and NABEEL

Bubbles Show Special

This was a special two hour episode (live show) in which the Bulbulay characters were live on ARY digital where they met their fans who were present there and received the calls of those who were absent. The BulBulay characters were highly appreciate by the fans.

Cast

Main characters

• Nabeel as Nabeel
  A lazy, greedy and selfish man who does not find a job and is always in search for a way to make quick money, often making investments using his wife's money just to find out they were frauds. He is Momo's son, Mehmood's step-son, Khoobsoorat's husband, Sona's half-brother and Chaandi's father. He depends on the money his father-in-law Siddiqui sends to Khoobsoorat. Although he is married to Khoobsoorat, he is often seen flirting with other women albeit without success. His wife never gets insecure, given his inability to pick girls up. He imagines life as a sitcom. He imagines that he is shooting a family sitcom by the name of "BulBulay" which is directed by his friend Rana Rizwaan, is written by his friend Ali Imraan and produced by Nabeel himself. Whenever he says something stupid,he says this is what the 'writer' has written in the 'script'.
• Ayesha Omar as Khoobsoorat
  Nabeel's wife. She is the only sensible character, but can get greedy at times. She often tells Nabeel to get a job. She is Siddiqui's daughter. Her mother died when she was very young. Whenever Nabeel says something stupid, she says "Shut Up, Nabeel!" to which Nabeel replies "Okay, Jaanu!" (which means Okay darling!) She hates the fact that her father pays the rent for the house and wants Nabeel to pay the rent instead. She often reminds Nabeel and his family that they are living on her father's money. She sometimes fights with Momo but actually Momo and Khoobsoorat love each other very much.
• Mehmood Aslam as Mehmood Sahab
  Nabeel's step-father, Sona's father and Momo's second husband. Despite his old age, he tells his wife that this is his first marriage. He retired from his old job many years ago, and also receives some pension. He tries to makes him and his wife's life as comfortable as possible.
• Hina Dilpazar as Mumtaz (Momo)
  Nabeel's mother Mumtaz or Momo as her husband calls her, is a clueless old lady who often forgets names. She even forgets the names of her husband, son and daughter-in-law and always calls them by random names. She also forgets words and names of objects, and refers to the word with woh (that) and leaves everyone around her guessing what word she was looking for. She was first married to Nabeel's father. Fifteen years after his death, she married Mehmood Sahab. She has two sons, Nabeel and Sona. Mehmood is her husband and Khoobsoorat is her daughter-in-law. Chaandi is her granddaughter. She is the most-loved character on the show and has slowly gained a cult following.
• Fatima Nabeel (Nabeel's real life daughter) as Chandi
  Nabeel and Khoobsoorat's daughter, Mehmood and Momo's granddaughter and Sona's niece.Chandi means Silver in English. Whenever something is held wrong, she asks her mother "What happened mama?". She is the same age as her uncle Sonna.
• Nyle Rizwan (Rana Rizwan's real life son) as Sona
  Mehmood and Momo's son, Nabeeel's half-brother, Khoobsoorat's brother-in-law and Chaandhi's uncle (although he is the same age as Chaandi). His name, "Sona" means "gold" in English. He is very fond of Nabeel and wants to be like him in very manner, such as talking style, etc.

Recurring characters

Although there are a lot of minor and recurring characters, the most notable include:

• Tariq Butt as Butt Sahb, First seen in the first episode sharing a bench with Khubsoorat at the train station where he is reading an English newspaper, the narrator says that he enjoys reading English newspapers and comes to the station often to read the newspaper for free. The narrator then says, he stares at every woman as if she were his wife, following this comments he starts staring at Khubsoorat and starts flirting with her, as a result she gets up and walks out of the station. Later it turns out he is a police officer and occurs regularly in the series. He is a good friend of the family. He does not know how to do his duty, when he is called to help he usually does nothing useful and mostly ends up worsening the situation.Bulbulay Police Officer.

• Khwaja Aslam as Siddiqui, Nabeel's father in-law and Khubsoorat's father. He does not like Nabeel due to his incompetence and laziness and despises Nabeel for marrying his daughter. When Khubsoorat first meets her dad after running away from the marriage, she tells him she got married to Nabeel so that he does not take her back home with him. Later he finds out she is not married and says he is coming to take her back home, but unfortunately for Siddiqui, by the time he arrives, Khubsoorat is already married to Nabeel. When Nabeel's friend Ahmar finds tenants for his apartment, and the family has to evacuate the apartment, it is Siddiqui who arranges and pays for the new home for his daughter and as a result for the family to live in.He married to another girl in episode 140.

• Binita David as Baytab: Siddiqui married her in episode 140. Although she is married to the much older Siddiqui, she often talks to her ex-boyfriend Omer on phone. Siddiqui is however, aware of this. It seems as if she has only married Siddiqui for money. She calls Siddiqui "Babloo"

• Aijaz Aslam as Nabeel's deceased father: Although he had died fifteen years ago, his ghost has appeared in three episodes of Bulbulay when he wanted to kill Mehmood Sahab because he is Momo's second husband. However, when Nabeel told him that he loves Mehmood Sahab more than him, his ghost left.

• Irfan Motiwala as a thief in Ramadan Episode 160 ^[2] and an another Episode they are kidnaper of Mahmood Sahab.

Reception

Bulbulay achieved highest ever rating of a comedy series. Bulbulay has achieved rating of 8.0 TRPs (Television Rating Points) which is far more than other Pakistani comedy dramas.^[3] Bulbulay also won the Best Sitcom Award for three consecutive years in 2010 to 2012 on Pakistan Media Award.

See also

• ARY Digital
• Ayesha Omar
• Hina Dilpazar
• Nabeel
• Arslan Amjad

References

External links

• Bulbulay at the Urdu Magazine
• Bulbulay App at Anroid App.