Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?


Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? is an Indian Hindi-language romantic drama television series that aired weekdays on Star Plus from 6 June 2011 to 30 November 2012. The show starred Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani.
On 24 November 2015, Hotstar launched an eight episode web series, Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon - Ek Jashn, to extend the Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? storyline. Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani reprised their respective roles as Arnav and Khushi.

Plot

The story narrates the romance between a business tycoon Arnav Singh Raizada, and a middle class girl from Lucknow, Khushi Kumari Gupta.
Khushi stumbles into Arnav in Lucknow after mistakenly crashing one of his promotional fashion events and delaying her duties for her sister Payal's wedding, leading to it getting cancelled. Rebuked by society, the sisters' parents send them to live with their paternal aunt in Delhi.
Working a small job selling designer sarees, Khushi lands up at Shanti Van, or Raizada house. Arnav's sister Anjali and his maternal grandmother take a liking to her.
Back at her aunt's, Anjali's husband Shyam, who has been stalking Khushi from Lucknow, reaches her place to live as a paying guest, and poses as a bachelor, wanting to get engaged to her, when he is actually married. Khushi asks Shyam to help her get a job, and she reaches ASR office, which is handled by Arnav. They meet again, and she irritates Arnav with her clumsiness while his arrogant behaviour makes her time difficult. He wants to get her fired as soon as possible to keep away from her.
At Raizada house, Naani wants Khushi to groom Lavanya, Arnav's live-in girlfriend. Out from office, Khushi now visits Shanti Van daily, irritating Arnav further. Khushi's funny antics and her lively behaviour wins over the Raizada family, and even Arnav starts developing a soft corner for her. Realising this, Lavanya leaves just before their engagement.
Meanwhile, Khushi's father discovers Shyam's secret and is about to reveal it, when Shyam tortures him into partial paralysis. He is unable to tell the family anything, and as a male authority to "secure" the family, Shyam proposes engagement to Khushi who accepts under family pressure.
Due to frequently visiting the Raizada house, Khushi later finds out about Shyam and breaks off their alliance.
Arnav slowly realises he is in love with Khushi, who also discovers she loves Arnav, much to the irritation of Shyam, who observes Khushi around the house. Meanwhile, Arnav's cousin Aakash falls in love with Khushi's sister Payal, and despite facing a lot of opposition from his elitist mother Manorama, the family approves their alliance and they get engaged. On the day of their wedding, Arnav discovers Shyam pleading Khushi to marry him, and misinterprets the situation. To save his now pregnant sister's marital life, he blackmails Khushi, keeping Payal's wedding at stake, into marrying him.
Khushi and Arnav have a love-hate relationship in their married life, constantly bickering but also caring for each other. Khushi brings Arnav to her aunt's house to irk him more, and bonding through their time together, she soon finds out why Arnav married her in a rush. She tries to justify her innocence to Shyam, but he does not believe her.
Shyam, greedy for the Raizada estate and industries, plans to murder Arnav and arranges his abduction but Khushi manages to rescue him with the help of his NRI cousin, Nandkishore or NK. Arnav comes home, exposes Shyam, and throws him out, causing Anjali to fall into depression. Khushi feels guilty and helpless and brings Shyam back for Anjali's happiness, creating a rift between her and Arnav. Entering the house, Shyam successfully plots Anjali's miscarriage causing her trauma again, and Arnav and Khushi find proof of this. They expose Shyam together and Anjali finally throws Shyam out of the house.
Khushi and Arnav plan to marry in an elaborate ceremony but Anjali and Arnav's grandmother returns. She meets Khushi's family and reveals Khushi's mother was Arnav's father's mistress, and the reason their marriage fell apart and their parents committed suicide. She also wants Shyam to return as she does not believe in divorces, or matriarchy. Arnav initially breaks off the marriage but later understands Khushi's mother, like Khushi, was not aware of his father's marriage, and returns. Arnav and Khushi get married in a beautiful ceremony.
Arnav's college friend Sheetal drops in with Aarav, disguising him as Arnav's "son" to inherit Arnav's property. Khushi exposes her, but they adopt Aarav.
Khushi later runs for a beauty pageant for married women and with Arnav's motivation, wins it.
The show ends on a happy note.
The later released sequel of the show, a hotstar original, revealed Anjali is running an NGO,Payal is revealed to be pregnant and Khushi and Arnav are happily living together.

Cast

Main

Production

The show has been produced and directed by Gul Khan under the banner of 4 Lions Films. Barun Sobti was cast as Arnav Singh Raizada after the original choice, Karan Singh Grover, opted out of the role to focus on his film career; and Sanaya Irani replaced Shraddha Arya who had originally been cast as the female lead. Daljeet Kaur, Deepali Pansare & Akshay Dogra got finalised to play supporting roles to the main leads. Other supporting cast include Jayshree T., Tuhina Vohra, Abha Parmar, Utkarsha Naik, Sanjay Batra and many other actors. Abhaas Mehta and Sana Makbul entered the show as antagonists of the show. Sana later quit the show in December 2011.

International broadcast

The series premiered on 6 June 2011 on Star Plus airing a 20-minute episode Mondays to Fridays. After completing approximately 398 episodes, the series went off air on 30 November 2012. The series was part of the channels worldwide broadcast and aired in more than 50 countries under the transmission of Star India. It has been dubbed and adapted into multiple languages.

Remakes and further distribution

The series inspired several international remakes, which include Bojhena Se Bojhena in Bengali on Star Jalsha and as Arangini in Kannada on Suvarna channel. The series were rerunned including, but not limited to in English and Urdu as Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon in Pakistan on Urdu 1 and another free to air channel, Tamil as Idhu Kadhala on Star Vijay, Telugu as Chuppulu Kalisina Shubhavela on Star Maa, Malayalam as Mounam Sammatham on Asianet,Asianet plus,Kazakh as Kak Nazvat Bul Lyubov?, Arabic as '"Men Nazra Thanya, Vietnamese as Mối Tình Kì Lạ on HTV3, French as La Promesse on Reunion 1ere. Turkish as Bir Garip Ask, Indonesian as Khushi on Indosiar, Bulgarian as Diema Family, Georgian as Mojadoebulebi, Lithuanian as Neklausk Meiles Vardo, Russian as How Do I Call This Love, and Armenian as Inchpes Kochel Ays Sere, aired in Jamaica as Unforeseen Love on one of the two free-to-air channels in the country which is CVM Television and airs in Namibia into NBC3 as Strange Love. On 19 March 2018, the series dubbed in Spanish as Duele Amar and telecasted on Panamericana Televisión. IPKKND will be rerunning in Thai as Phaen Rak Lwng Ci on Thai channel 8 from 27 June 2018.
In 2015, Hotstar launched a finite web series of eight episodes titled
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? - Ek Jashn'' with the original cast and the characters. The story revolves around Arnav and Khushi's married life after three years.

Reception

Fans of the series started referring to characters Arnav and Khushi by the portmanteau "ArShi". The character of Arnav Singh Raizada was very popular and gave a huge fan following to Barun Sobti such that when Sobti announced his break from the show due to health problems, his fans made it sure that the show was shut down on a happy note rather than any replacement. The onscreen chemistry between Sobti and Sanaya Irani resulted in several awards for best on-screen couple. The show also had very high TRPS. The last episode of Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon renamed as 'Rabba Ve' on Star Utsav was the No.1 show on the channel and was in top 10 and top 20 despite non favourable timings. The show is being re-broadcast in the morning slot from 29 November onwards.

Awards and nominations