Yeh Hai Chahatein


Yeh Hai Chahatein is an Indian drama television series produced by Ekta Kapoor for Star Plus. The series, which premiered on 19 December 2019, is a spin-off series of Yeh Hai Mohabbatein. It stars Sargun Kaur Luthra, Abrar Qazi and Vidhaan Sharma.

Plot

Preesha Srinivasan is raising her nephew Saaransh as a mother, after her sister Mahima dies. Saaransh is a fan of Rudraksh Khurana, a rockstar, who doesn't believe in love and is detested by Preesha.
Yuvraj fakes being in love with Preesha to get promoted as a judge by Gopal. After finding out that Saraansh is Rudraksh's elder brother Rajeev's son, Yuvraj blackmails him for money. On Preesha's and Yuvraj's wedding day, Yuvraj leaves the marriage and kills Rajeev who has learned the truth about Saaransh. Preesha takes the murder blame on herself, after Yuvraj lies about his innocence, to save him. Rudraksh vows revenge on her. He learns that Saaransh is Rajeev's son and believes that Preesha is Saaransh's real mother and Rajeev's former lover, unaware that it was Mahima.
Yuvraj, who gets the promotion, sentences Preesha to be hanged after being bribed by Rudraksh. Yuvraj kidnaps Saaransh and pretends to save him, lying to Preesha that he sentenced her death to save Saaransh from Rudraksh. After learning that Saraansh will get 50 lakes per month, till he reaches the age of 21 - as planned by Rajeev - Yuvraj decides to legally adopt Saaransh to have a luxurious future by marrying Preesha. On their wedding day Rudraksh takes Yuvraj's place and marries Preesha to get full custody of Saraansh, as this was his brother's last wish and also his way to take revenge against Preesha.
Preesha thinks of the well being of her son and hands over the full custody of Saraansh to Rudraksh to prevent him being called the son of a murderer. Preesha is proved innocent with the help of her father and goes to take her son back, interrupting Rudraksh and Mishka's, Ahana's younger sister's, wedding. Rudraksh puts forth a condition in front of Preesha that since he has the legal custody of Saaransh then she has to live in the Khurana house to be with him. She agrees so Rudra calls off the marriage between him and Mishka. To stop the child care department from taking Saaransh, Rudra and Preesha act as a happy couple.
After Bubble and Bunty's marriage, Yuvraj steals the family necklace gifted to Preesha by Sharda but is caught. They accuse Preesha of stealing who apologises to Sharda for the incident.
Niranjan an investor in khurana company and also Mishka's dad arrives, to give surprise to both his daughters. He gets to know about Preesha and Saraansh and supports Rudraksh's decision.
Later Saraansh is attacked by a mysterious lady in a red saree who kidnaps him. Preesha and Rudraksh inform the police but due to certain clues they doubt Balraj due to his hatred towards Saraansh.
Gopal meets with an accident and is taken to hospital. Yuvraj comes to take Preesha to the hospital with a jealous Rudra accompanying them. At the hospital, they meet a fan of Rudra who flirts with him but because of a vow he had taken to save Saaransh, he doesn't flirt back. Yuvraj bribes her to fake a molesting case against Rudra but Preesha tricks her into confessing the lie.
Preesha discovers that Balraj is innocent and notices Saaransh's napkin in Niketan's pocket. She runs to Niketans room and finds Saaransh tied up under the bed. Niketan returns and Preesha confronts him where he reveals that he likes dressing as a women, and since Saaransh had seen him, he kidnapped him to safeguard his secret. He holds Saaransh at gun point and tries to escape, Preesha gets shot while Saaransh injures his head. Ahaana acts being kind and concerned about Preesha to get away from the crime while Niketan is arrested. Rudraksh donates his blood to save Saaransh whose presence helps Preesha recover.

Cast

Main

Development

In June 2017, during the launch of Kundali Bhagya, a spin-off of Kumkum Bhagya, Producer Ekta Kapoor revealed that she had plans for a spin-off of Yeh Hai Mohabbatein however stated, "I wanted to make a spin off of YHM but it’s not working out with the story line." The reports of the spin-off in making was then announced in April 2018. It was supposed to premiere in the same year but was delayed as the story was not finalized. Then, it was reported to premiere in June 2019 and the casting for it was going on while Aakanksha Singh and Karan Vohra were reported as the leads. But it was scrapped in July 2019. In September 2019, the series was revived and fresh casting sessions began. Sargun Kaur Luthra was cast as Dr. Preesha Srinivasan and Abrar Qazi was cast as Rudraksh Khurana.
The first promo of the series was released on 27 November 2019 where Sargun Kaur Luthra and Vidhaan Sharma were introduced by Divyanka Tripathi and Karan Patel as Dr. Preesha Srinivasan and Saransh Khurana. The next promo was released on 16 December 2019 featuring Abrar Qazi, Sargun Kaur Luthra and Vidhaan Sharma.
Talking about the series, producer Ekta Kapoor said, "We have seen lots of stories till now, but this one is going to be even more special." Further, she said, "Yeh Hai Chahatein deals with another social issue. It’s often said that it’s easier for men with children to get married again, but very tough for a woman with a child to find a suitable groom."
Abrar Qazi expressed, "I feel very fortunate to be working with Ekta Ma’am. I have been watching all her shows since childhood and it was a dream to work with her someday. I didn’t know my dream would come true so soon in my career but I feel blessed. I was in complete awe of her when I met her for the first time during the briefing of our show."
Sargun Kaur Luthra stated that she took inspiration from Neena Gupta for her role.
Talking about playing a mother for the first time, she said, “When I was told that I will be playing a mother, I wasn’t apprehensive at all. My only worry was that i am very young and I had to look mature on the screen which was a challenge. The team has helped me a lot to help me look a certain age and moreover with my body language to portray this character. Even Vidhaan, has helped bring out the best in me. More than mother-son, we are like friends off the screen.”
Aishwarya Sakhuja was roped to play the negative role of Ahana which is her first negative role. Speaking about it she said, "I have auditioned for a lot of Balaji shows and whenever I auditioned for negative roles I was told I look very positive. So, when I bagged this role, I asked them why now? They said eventually you will get to know as to why we have chosen you, and I understand because they like to surprise their audience and that's exactly what they are doing. I was figuring how to go about it, but my team is helping. After every two sentences out of habit, I go into the positive zone but I have people to handhold me and help me,"

Casting

was selected to play Dr. Preesha Srinivasan's character. Karan Wahi was approached to play Rudraksh Khurana, but Abrar Qazi was signed by the makers. Zebby Singh was in talks for playing Yuvraj Pillai before the role went to Siddharth Shivpuri. Supposed to play Ahana in the show was Parul Chauhan, but Aishwarya Sakhuja replaced her. When the shooting resumed after forced break owing to Covid-19 outbreak, in early July 2020 Vidhaan Sharma was replaced by Yagya Bhasin as Saaransh and Gulshan Pandey replaced Vijay Kashyap as Gopal.

Broadcast

The production and airing of the show was halted indefinitely in late March 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak in India. Because of the outbreak, the filming of television series and films was halted on 19 March 2020 and expected to resume on 1 April 2020 but could not and the series was last broadcast on 24 March 2020 when the remaining episodes were aired. After three months, the production and filming of the series resumed on 27 June 2020 while the broadcast resumed on 13 July 2020.

Reception

Critical response

stated, "Abrar Qazi and Sargun Kaur Luthra deliver an impressive performance". Pinkvilla said, "The first episode very well established the difference in approach to a single father and a mother and headlines the plot of this interesting love story of a gynecologist and a rockstar.