Myth-Inspired Novela, Deception, Premieres On Zee World

A new series, Deception, will be replacing Amma which wraps up on Sunday, January 5 on Zee World Africa. Deception premieres the day after at 19h00. It is a total of a 175-episode series inspired by a mythological Hindu story.

Below are 5 important things you need to know about Deception.

It’s a modern-day retelling of the love story between Menaka and Vishwamitra. Menaka was an Apsara – a type of female spirit in Buddhist and Hindi culture.
Vishwamitra was a sage, a very enlightened person of ancient India who spent his time alone in divine reflection through meditation.

There are various interpretations of the story but according to wikiquote, the god Indra was afraid of Vishwamitra because he was so powerful as a result of his goodness and devotion.

Indra sent Menaka to earth to seduce him with her beauty, to break his meditation to reduce his powers – and it worked!

But Menaka wasn’t able to stay on earth with him – Apsara spirits had to return to heaven, which made things complicated, especially because she had a daughter with him.
In Deception the lead characters of Naren and Pooja represent these two beings. Naren is on a spiritual mission and isn’t interested in living a social life or being married, which concerns his parents.
Enter Pooja, and they see a married future for him. She’s charming, chatty and soon becomes best friends with Naren, which leads to love BUT… of course there would be no TV series if it was as simple as that.

3. The show stars two newcomers to Zee World: Akshay Mhatre as Naren and Sheen Dass as Pooja.

4. It’s original Hindi title is Piyaa Albela and there were 383 episodes when it aired in India.

They were only 22 minutes long though so they’ve been combined for our broadcast.

It’s most popularly used English title is Unique Love or Unique Lover, a much better title than Deception. We don’t know the full plot details so maybe there’s some deception but we prefer Unique Lover – it’s sexier.

5. The series leaps in time at various points: not major leaps but enough for notable changes to both of the lead characters.