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*Ek Thi Begum*
Ek Thi Begum
Genre	Crime; Thriller
Based on	Sapna Didi
Written by	Sachin Darekar
Directed by	Sachin Darekar & Jai Tank;
Starring	Anuja Sathe; Ankit Mohan; Chinmay Mandlekar; Rajendra Shisatkar; Abhijeet Chavan;
Music by	Amitraj, Javed Ali, Sunidhi Chauhan
Country of origin	India
Original language	Marathi
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	26
Production
Executive producer	Manish Bhogate
Producer	Ninad Raikar
Production location	India
Running time	434.46 mins
Production company	Times Studio
Original release
Network	MX Player
Release	8 April 2020 –; 30 September 2021

^[1]

Ek Thi Begum,^[2] an MX Original Series, is a story of a stunningly beautiful woman played by Anuja Sathe. She plays the role of Ashraf aka Sapna, the loving wife of Zaheer played by Ankit Mohan^[3] – a once confidant of Maqsood, the underworld don, but now an arch rival. When the rift between the rivals reaches ugly culmination Zaheer gets killed. Ashraf vows to overturn and destroy Masood’s illegal empire using her beauty, sensuality and acute intelligence. Ek Thi Begum is inspired by true events created,^[4] written and directed by Sachin Darekar. It was made available for streaming on MX Player for free from 8 April 2020. On September 20, 2021, MX Player unveiled the full trailer for Ek Thi Begum 2 and on 30 September 2021, the second season was released on their platform.

Plot

Ek thi Begum is based on a real life ‘untold’ story of a stunningly beautiful woman – Ashraf Bhatkar, born to a poor family in Aurangabad and raised in Bombay.^[5] She became the loving wife of Zaheer – a once confidant of Maqsood but now his arch-rival. Maqsood is the biggest mafia, underworld don who operates his giant drug cartel in India from Dubai. When the rift between Maqsood and Zaheer reaches ugly culminations, Maqsood succeeds in cunningly eliminating Zaheer. In a fake encounter, on 26 July 1986, staged by police officers, Zaheer is picked up from the airport by cops and taken away to a secluded location and finally killed. Ashraf fights hard to secure justice but fails against the might of the mafia and political bigwigs. She vows to overturn and destroy Masood’s illegal empire. Using her beauty, sensuality and acute intelligence, she meticulously plans and executes dramatic strategies undertaking the role of a police informer. Ashraf becomes the biggest informer for the police and the biggest thorn in the flesh for Maqsood. Blinded with vengeance she becomes a powerful force of domination and influence. She also marries a police officer Vikram Bhosle.

Ashraf acquires so much information and prepares a file that has names and proof, which threatens to expose the nexus between politicians, corrupt cops and the mafia. To avoid the ultimate expose, an attempt to kill Ashraf takes place and the file is however not found.

Ek Thi Begum is inspired by true events and all episodes of season 1 went live on 8 April 2020 & season 2 on 30 September 2021.

Episodes

The following is a list of episodes.

Season 1 (2020)

1. The big mistake (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 1

2. The turning point (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 2

3. The naked truce (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 3

4. The big hunt (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 4

5. The turmoil (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 5

6. The defeat (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 6

7. The transformation (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 7

8. The honey trap (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 8

9. The taste of blood (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 9

10. The game becomes ugly (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 10

11. The ultimate seduction (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 11

12. The big catch (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 12

13. The countdown begins (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 13

14. The final encounter (08-04-2020 Wednesday) 14

Season 2 (2021)

1. Re-birth (30-09-2021 Thursday) 15

2. Game of power (30-09-2021 Thursday) 16

3. Face-off (30-09-2021 Thursday) 17

4. Muscle meets brain (30-09-2021 Thursday) 18

5. Hunter's hunt (30-09-2021 Thursday) 19

6. Biggest deal (30-09-2021 Thursday) 20

7. Meeting the devil (30-09-2021 Thursday) 21

8. The game begins (30-09-2021 Thursday) 22

9. A deadly encounter (30-09-2021 Thursday) 23

10. Shadows of past (30-09-2021 Thursday) 24

11. Brutal truth (30-09-2021 Thursday) 25

12. The final chapter (30-09-2021 Thursday) 26

Cast and characters


Actors	Character
Anuja Sathe	Ashraf Bhatkar
Ankit Mohan	Zaheer Bhatkar
Shahab Ali	Shakeel Ansari
Mir Sarwar	Nari Khan
Vijay Nikam	Bhai Chavan
Sauraseni Maitra	Anita Surve
Hitesh Bhojraj	Ashwin Surve
Chinmay Mandlekar	Vikram Bhosale
Rajendra Shisatkar	Nana Mhatre
Resham	Anjali Dixit
Abhijeet Chavan	Insp. Tawde
Pradip Doiphode	Insp. Bhoir
Vitthal Kale	Iqbal Khan
Nazarr Khan	Rashid
Anil Nagarkar	Bhau Nare
Santosh Juvekar	Sawtya
Suchit Jadhav	Tandel
Ajay Gehi	Maqsood
Raju Aathavle	Bala Mama
Amitraj	Raghu Mhatre
Deepak Karanjikar	Commissioner Gokhale
Vivek Aapte	Dandekar
Advait Dadarkar	Rishi
Shivraj Walvekar	Ganpatrao Kadam
Vishal Kulthe	Shirodkar
Pratibha Goregaonkar	Zaheer Ammi
Ashok Sawant	Zaheer Abu
Amir Tadwalkar	Sulu Potya
Aashay Kulkarni	Victor
Abhijeet Jhunjaarrao	Adv. Deshmukh
Sagar Kale	Adv. Salvi
Apurva Choudhary	Reshma
Kalyani Vyakatesh	Sweety
Anjali Banarjee	Nisha
Suhas Deshpande	Dr. Sheikh
Kishore Pednekar	Judge Joshi
Ratnakant Nadkarni	Judge Gupte
Ritesh Bene	Bandya Jadhav
Vikas Sonawne	Hawaldar Rane
Pratap Kalke	Constable Shinde
Aslam Wadkar	Constable Pawar
Mahesh Rahale	Ravi Anna
Prashant Loke	Rokde Khabari
Deepti Dhotre	Sarika
Mitali Kalaagi	Maria
Asit Redij	Waman Joshi
Sanket Pathare	Yussuf Sayyed
Sajid Hussain	Linemen Mishra
Ashutosh Suryavanshi	Rangya
Raghu Jagtap	Baban
Vaibhav Ambekar	Manoj

Marketing and Release

Promotion

The official trailer of the web series was launched on 6 April 2020, by MX Player on YouTube. On 20 September 2021, the official trailer of the second season was released on the official Youtube account of MX Player

Release

Ek Thi Begum was made available for free streaming on MX Player from 8 April 2020. On 30 September 2021, MX Player released the second season on their platform.

Critical response

The Scroll.in in a review of Ek Thi Begum, wrote, "Ek Thi Begum is hard-pressed to answer these questions despite 14 episodes at its disposal and the promise of a second season. Despite ample opportunities, Ek Thi Begum turns out to be a damp squib that ultimately adds little to the gangster canon in popular culture."^[6]