Honestly, if you grew up watching Indian soap operas in the mid-2010s, you couldn't escape the phenomenon. It was everywhere. You’d hear the theme song drifting from neighbors' windows every evening at 7:30 PM. Yeh Hai Mohabbatein wasn't just another show; it was a cultural shift in how Star Plus handled prime-time drama. Based loosely on Manju Kapur’s novel Custody, the show ditched the typical "evil mother-in-law" tropes—at least initially—to focus on something way more grounded: a woman who couldn't have children and a man who had forgotten how to be a father.
It worked.
The chemistry between Divyanka Tripathi and Karan Patel was lightning in a bottle. You had Ishita Iyer, a compassionate Tamilian dentist, and Raman Bhalla, a hot-headed Punjabi CEO. It was the classic "opposites attract" setup, but with a massive, emotional anchor in the form of a tiny girl named Ruhi.
What made the show actually different?
Most shows back then were obsessed with the "Sada-Suhaagan" trope where the lead actress survived ten murder attempts before breakfast. Yeh Hai Mohabbatein took a detour. It dealt with infertility. It dealt with the trauma of divorce. It dealt with the friction of inter-community marriages without making it a caricature—mostly.
Ishita wasn't just a stepmother; she was "Ishima." That bond was the heartbeat of the show. While other serials were busy with supernatural twists (though YHM eventually succumbed to some weird plotting later on), the early years were pure, character-driven gold. The show tackled the stigma of a "barren" woman in Indian society and flipped it. Ishita’s value wasn't tied to her biological clock, but to her capacity to love a child that wasn't hers. That resonated. People felt that.
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The Karan Patel and Divyanka Tripathi Magic
Let’s be real: without Karan Patel’s "Angry Young Man" energy and Divyanka’s "Jhansi Ki Rani" poise, the show would have folded in six months.
Raman Bhalla was a deeply flawed man. He was arrogant, often rude, and carried the baggage of his ex-wife Shagun’s betrayal like a shield. Watching Ishita slowly dismantle those walls was satisfying television. It wasn't an overnight change. It took hundreds of episodes. That’s the thing about long-running soaps; the slow burn is the point. You’ve got to let the characters breathe.
Shagun, played by Anita Hassanandani, was the perfect foil. She wasn't just a villain; she was a woman driven by material ambition, which made her human, albeit frustrating. The triangle between Raman, Ishita, and Shagun fueled years of plot twists.
Why the "Leap" changed everything
Every long-running Indian serial eventually hits the "Leap" button. Yeh Hai Mohabbatein did it multiple times. Suddenly, Ruhi was a teenager (Aditi Bhatia), and the dynamics shifted from parenting a toddler to navigating the rebellious years of adulthood.
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Some fans hated it. Others loved the fresh blood.
The show ran for over 1,800 episodes. That is a staggering amount of content. By the time it wrapped up in late 2019, it had traveled to international locations like Australia, Budapest, and London. It had seen memory losses, fake deaths, and more kidnappings than a crime thriller. Yet, the core audience stayed. Why? Because the Bhalla and Iyer families felt like people we knew. Mrs. Bhalla’s loud Punjabi antics and Mr. Iyer’s calm Tamilian demeanor were the comfort food of Indian television.
Addressing the late-stage plot holes
It wasn't all perfect. Not even close.
Towards the end, the writing got... wild. We’re talking about spirits, secret surgeries, and characters returning from the dead with different faces. The "Ishita kills her son Aditya" arc was particularly polarizing. It pushed the drama to a point where some viewers felt the original soul of the show—the simple, heartfelt romance—was lost.
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But even when the plots went off the rails, the ratings remained respectable. It’s a testament to the brand equity the creators built in the first three years. People weren't watching for the logic; they were watching because they were invested in the "IshRa" marriage.
The Legacy of the Show
When the curtains finally closed, it left a void that the spin-off, Yeh Hai Chahatein, tried to fill. While the spin-off had its own success, it never quite captured the zeitgeist in the same way.
Yeh Hai Mohabbatein proved that you could lead a show with a "flawed" woman and a "broken" man and still reach the top of the TRP charts. It broke the South-North divide in a way few shows had done before, blending cultures through humor and mutual respect (and a lot of butter chicken and filter coffee).
How to revisit the series today
If you’re looking to binge-watch or catch up on what you missed, here is the most efficient way to do it:
- Stick to the early years: Focus on the first 500 episodes if you want the high-quality, character-focused drama that won all the awards.
- Use Disney+ Hotstar: The entire library is archived there. You can skip the "filler" episodes—usually the ones involving long wedding sequences or repeated flashbacks—and stick to the major plot beats.
- Watch the international arcs: The Budapest and Australia episodes offer a nice change of scenery and higher production values if the studio sets start feeling claustrophobic.
- Follow the actors: Both Divyanka and Karan are active on social media and often share "throwback" content that gives behind-the-scenes context to famous scenes, adding a layer of appreciation for the craft involved.
The show remains a blueprint for how to balance social messaging with "masala" entertainment. It taught a generation of viewers that motherhood isn't defined by birth, and that love is often found in the most inconvenient, argumentative circumstances. It was, and remains, a landmark of Indian television history.