Ishqbaaaz


Ishqbaaaz is an Indian romantic drama television series that aired from 27 June 2016 to 15 March 2019 on Star Plus. It initially starred Nakuul Mehta, Surbhi Chandna, Kunal Jaisingh, Shrenu Parikh, Leenesh Mattoo and Mansi Srivastava. In December 2018, the show took a generation leap and aired a new season titled, Ishqbaaaz: Pyaar Ki Ek Dhinchak Kahaani starring Nakuul Mehta and Niti Taylor.

Plot

Kalyani Singh Oberoi, the matriarch of the family has two sons, Tej and Shakti. Tej is married to Jhanvi and they have three children, Omkara, Rudra and Priyanka. Shakti is married to Pinky and has a son, Shivaay, who is the eldest grandson.
Shivaay manages the Oberoi empire. He does not believe in love and plans to marry Tia Kapoor on his mother's insistence. After a rocky start, Tia runs away from her own wedding and Shivaay forcibly marries Annika. After facing many difficulties Shivaay exposes Tia's marriage with Dushyant and also exposes her mother, Mrs. Kapoor's evil intentions in front of guests and family members and declares Annika as his real wife before them. Eventually, they fall in love.
Omkara is an artist. He meets Ishana who wants to marry him to attain financial stability and deceives him till she is exposed by his brothers. He marries Gauri Kumari Sharma, a bubbly girl under tough circumstances. Initially Omkara detests her, misunderstanding her to be a gold digger. But Gauri brings out the artist in him once again and he eventually falls in love with her.
Rudra is the youngest brother and practically the baby of the family. He has no ambitions or goals in life and only loves to work out and party. Bhavya Pratap Rathore, an undercover police officer ends up using Rudra in one of her operations. Through a series of events they fall in love and marry.
Priyanka is a shy, nervous and honest girl. Priyanka marries Ranveer Randhawan, a police officer who had been blackmailing her. Ranveer and his foster mother Kamini Khurana try to ruin the Oberois, but later Ranveer has a change of heart and falls in love with Priyanka.
The Kapoor sisters are the brothers' rivals. Svetlana reveals that their parents were killed in an accident at one of the Oberoi factories and therefore the sisters seek revenge with various plots. Svetlana has an affair with Tej and breaks up the family. When Tej and Jhanvi reunite, she tries to seduce their son, Omkara, but fails and is eventually jailed. Tiaia eventually changes for the better when her husband Dushyant is revealed to be alive.
Saumya, the last Kapoor sister, was initially introduced as a family friend, but right after Bhavya and Rudra's wedding, it is revealed she is the secret third sister of the Kapoor family. Both Svetlana and Saumya are imprisoned, but Tia is reunited with Dushyant and they have a child.
Shivaay's aunt, Roop, wants revenge on the Oberois for abandoning her and tries to frame them for the Kalyani Mills fire as well as killing Mr. Kapoor. While trying to save the Oberois, Shivaay learns about Annika's parents who also died in the fire. Shivaay tells Annika about her identity and reunites her with her long-lost sister who turns out to be Gauri.

Redux story

The story takes a different leap, where an author and public speaker, returns all of them to where the story started and changes their lives by changing the circumstances.
Now, Shivaay is a stoic, no-nonsense businessman who is hurt by his parents' death. Pinky's suicide and Shakti's discovery of his affair haunt him. Omkara is also shown as a businessman. Rudra is shown as a supermodel who uses his fame and money as an excuse for everything he does. Priyanka is shown as Shivaay's younger sister this time.
Annika and Gauri live with their aunt who hates them because their mother left their father for another man. Gauri knows nothing of the incident and Annika struggles to make ends meet. She is constantly stressed about paying for Gauri's college tuition, Sahil's medications and house rent, with no help from her aunt.
Although Shivaay and Annika meet, they have a rocky relationship due to Shivaay's distrust of women, Gauri and Omkara meet, and instantly hit it off, Bhavya and Rudra also meet, but his misuse of money and fame irks Bhavya. Shivaay and Annika become closer when the latter is hired by Shivaay's sister Priyanka as a wedding planner. Shivaay is engaged to Tia on the insistence of his grandmother and Priyanka is engaged to Tia's brother Daksh. Both Tia and Daksh are bankrupt and are marrying the Oberoi siblings only for money. Daksh misbehaves with Annika who tries to expose his true nature but fails as Shivaay refuses to believe her.
On Daksh and Priyanka's wedding day, Daksh runs away after being blackmailed by Annika, Priyanka goes to look for him and meets with an accident and goes into coma. Shivaay holds Annika responsible and marries her forcibly. Eventually, Shivaay realizes Daksh's truth and Priyanka recovers. Shivaay publicly exposes Daksh and asks forgiveness from Annika. Shivaay restores Annika's reputation in society and decides to divorce her. After a long struggle Annika makes Shivaay realise that they are made for each other. Tej returns to India to take over the Oberoi empire, is jealous of Shivaay's fame, and hires Shivaay's friend Mohit to destroy his fame. Mohit comes to Oberoi Mansion along with Nancy, who is one day found murdered in Shivaay's room and he is blamed for it. Later, Shivaay discovers that Nancy was alive and she was not the real Nancy, but she was Mohit's assistant, the dead woman was the real Nancy. Mohit killed his own wife for the sake of her property, Mohit is arrested by Bhavya. Shivaay comes to know Tej's intentions. Tej tries to kill his own children forcing Shivaay to intervene. Shivaay kills Tej and is sent to prison for seven years.

Five years later

In Shivaay's absence, Om and Rudra take over his business and have grown to hate him for killing Tej. The brothers' evil aunt, Roop, reappears to kill Shivaay. Rudra discovers the real reason Shivaay killed Tej and the brothers are reunited. Later, Shivaay remarries Annika. Priyanka marries Shivaay's business rival Jai Kothari.
When Sahil gets arrested for drunk driving, Shivaay refuses to bail him out before letting him spend a night in jail, as a result, Sahil vows to retaliate against Shivaay. Jai tries to kill Annika to get revenge on Shivaay, but Shivaay saves Annika from kidnappers and rescues her.

20 years later

Annika and Shivaay's son, Shivaansh is a superstar and lives with his great-grandmothers, Kalyani and Aruna. He has a sister, Shivani. Rudra and Bhavya have a son, Dhruv, and Om and Gauri have a daughter, Radhika. She is married to Varun and harbours a secret enmity against the Oberois. Shivaansh has only one dream - to build a hospital in his parents' memory to provide free treatment for poor children. He is shown to be fighting a terminal disease and has a short time left to live.
Aditi Deshmukh, Commissioner of Police, is introduced as a self-made, strong Marathi girl who supports her uncle, aunt, and a younger sister. While her sister, Mahu, is a big fan of Shivaansh, Aditi has a strong prejudice against his fame. Aditi's father is revealed to have gone missing when she was a child, making her determined to find him. She is later revealed to be aiding Varun in planning against the Oberois.
Mannat Kaur Khurana is an orphan. Poor, unemployed and treated as a burden by her relatives, she is honest and principled. She gets a job at the Oberoi mansion. Meanwhile, Varun realises that Shivaansh may live if a heart transplant is successful so he abducts Mannat's friend, Munni, and blackmails Mannat. Shivaansh decides to pretend to marry Sonya, an actress, to make his ailing great-grandmother happy. Plotting against Shivaansh, Varun swaps Sonya with Mannat and gets them married. Varun then blackmails Mannat to destroy the heart rate tracker crucial for Shivaansh's treatment so Mannat can inherit Shivaansh's wealth after his death but he fails. Eventually, the story ends with Sahil being exposed as Shivaay and Annika's killer, and Shivaansh and Mannat confessing their love for each other.

Cast

Main

Initially, the show focused on the three brothers; Shivaay, Omkara, and Rudra portrayed by Nakuul Mehta, Kunal Jaisingh and Leenesh Mattoo and their partners; Annika, Ishana and Soumya portrayed by Surbhi Chandna, Vrushika Mehta and Nehalaxmi Iyer.
Later, the show centered on the love story of Shivaay and Annika and Omkara's story with Gauri and Rudra's story with Bhavya was shifted to the spin-off series Dil Boley Oberoi. Soon, the spin-off series was merged with this parent series.
On 18 June 2018, a reboot version, Ishqbaaaz: Redux, was launched with a new love story of the leads from the beginning.
Owing to its declining viewership ratings, it took a leap in December 2018 which starred Nakuul Mehta and Manjiri Pupala. As it failed to increase the ratings, Pupala's character was turned negative, resulting in her resignation. Eventually, Niti Taylor was roped to play Mannat Kaur Khurana. The expected ratings were not delivered and it went off air on 15 March 2019.

Spin-off

A spin-off series, Dil Boley Oberoi, premiered on 13 February 2017. It is acclaimed to be the first Indian soap to have a spin-off. On 7 July 2017, Dil Boley Oberoi ended and the storylines were merged back into Ishqbaaaz.
In Dil Boley Oberoi, Shrenu Parikh was introduced as Kunal Jaisingh's love interest.

Soundtrack

The Ishqbaaaz soundtrack was written by Shaheen Iqbal, and composed by Sanjeev Srivastava. Sanjeev Srivastava had composed the original songs and background score for the show. The original version of the album was released on 7 August 2016. "O Jaana", the theme song of the serial performed by Pamela Jain and Bhaven Dhanak.
"O Saathiya", the theme song of Dil Boley Oberoi, the album released on 1 May 2017. Firstly, the song was made for Omkara and Ishana, but after Ishana left, the song was not used at Ishqbaaaz. When Dil Boley Oberoi aired on, the female version by Pamela Jain was released, but now it also used on this show for Omkara and Gauri, after merging with Ishqbaaaz.

Adaptations

Ishqbaaaz was dubbed in Tamil and released as Kadhala Kadhala. It aired on Vijay Super and was discontinued even though more than 300 episodes were aired, and previously aired on Star Vijay as well. The show has been officially remade in Kannada as Sathyam Shivam Sundaram, airing on Star Suvarna. It is being directed by Sudharsan Srinivasan. Ishqbaaaz has been also dubbed into Arabic titled as Lil Ishq Junoon and it airs on MBC Bollywood. There is also a Malayalam dubbed version, Priyamanasam on Asianet and a Telugu-dubbed version Prema Yuddam on Star Maa.

Awards

Asian Viewers Television Awards

YearCategoryRecipientResultRef
2016Best ActorNakuul Mehta
2017Best ActorNakuul Mehta
2017Best ActressSurbhi Chandna
2017Soap Of The Year4 Lions Films
2018Best ActressSurbhi Chandna
2018Soap of the Year4 Lions Films

Gold Awards

YearCategoryRecipientResultRef
2017Best Actor Nakuul Mehta
2017Best Onscreen CoupleNakuul Mehta and Surbhi Chandna
2018Best Actor in a Lead RoleNakuul Mehta
2018Stellar Performer of the Year Surbhi Chandna
2018Best Supporting ActorKunal Jaisingh

Kalakar Awards

YearCategoryRecipientResultRef
2019Best ActorNakuul Mehta

Indian Television Academy Awards

YearCategoryRecipientResultRef
2017Best Actor - PopularNakuul Mehta
2017Best Serial - Popular4 Lions Films
2018Best Actress - PopularSurbhi Chandna

Indian Telly Awards

YearCategoryRecipientResultRef
2019Best Actor in a Lead RoleNakuul Mehta
2019Best Actor in a Supporting RoleKunal Jaisingh

Lions Gold Awards

YearCategoryRecipientResultRef
2019Best Actress Surbhi Chandna
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