Strange Love Indian Series In English

[Ambra Piszczek]

IssPyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? (transl. What Should I Name This Love?) is an Indian Hindi-language romantic drama television series that aired on StarPlus from 6 June 2011 to 30 November 2012. Produced by Gul Khan under 4 Lions Films, it starred Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani.

Khushi stumbles into Arnav in Lucknow after mistakenly crashing one of his promotional fashion events, and is blamed. This delays her duties towards her sister Payal's wedding, which is canceled. Meanwhile, Khushi gets harassed by eve-teasers and is saved by Shyam Manohar Jha, a married man, who instantly gets attracted to her. With wedding being called-off and rebuked by society, Khushi's adoptive parents decide to send Payal and Khushi to live with their paternal aunt in Delhi. Khushi is adopted as her parents had died in a car crash when she was young. Her maternal aunt and uncle had decided to take her in.

Back at her aunt's, Shyam, Anjali's husband, reaches Khushi's place as a bachelor wanting to get engaged to Khushi. Khushi asks Shyam to help her get a job, and thus she reaches ASR's office. Khushi's clumsiness irritates Arnav, so he does not want her in his office. Khushi, not wanting to give up, taunts Arnav, and eventually, they sign a 15-day contract, which says if she quits before the end of the contract period, Khushi would have to pay ASR one lakh rupees. Khushi takes up the challenge only to find ASR going out of his way to make her quit the job somehow. He makes her miserable by assigning her humanely impossible tasks, but Khushi does them all in strike. In a particularly life-threatening situation, Arnav rescues Khushi and briefly regrets putting her in that predicament. Tired of these antics, Payal convinces Khushi to quit the job, and the two sisters decide to go back to Lucknow. However, inspiration hits Khushi, who believes that it is a sign from the goddess she has strong faith in (Devi Maiyya). They decide to stay and open a sweet shop and as luck would have it, they end up at the Raizada house to fulfill an order of sweets for Anjali's wedding anniversary celebrations.

At Shantivan, one thing leads to another, and Anjali hires Khushi to groom Arnav's girlfriend, Lavanya, to make her the perfect daughter-in-law of the Raizadas. Khushi's constant presence at his house initially irritates Arnav, but her funny antics and lively nature wins him over slowly. He refuses to admit this and frequently taunts Khushi about her social status, in an attempt to satisfy his own ego. During Diwali celebrations, Arnav and Khushi share an intimate moment that Arnav is in denial about. He then says he is willing to marry Lavanya, much to his own displeasure, and because he is not willing to come to terms that he is in fact in love with Khushi. Khushi is devastated when she hears this. On the other hand, Shyam is successful in getting engaged to Khushi. After Arnav finds out that Khushi is marrying someone else, he once again resorts to his old ways of making her miserable.

On a parallel, Arnav's cousin Akash falls in love with Payal and proposes marriage. As the wedding preparations begin, Khushi's adoptive father, Shashi, discovers Shyam's secret - that he is married to Anjali. When he tries to reveal this to the rest of the family, Shyam tortures him into partial paralysis, rendering him unable to speak. Shyam then cleverly manipulates Buaji under the pretext of taking up family responsibilities instead.

Khushi and Arnav begin a pretend marriage filled with love and hate. Amid constant bickering and pranks, they grow closely together. She starts to wonder why Arnav married her. Suspecting Arnav's ulterior motives, Khushi contemplates suicide but is rescued by Arnav, who tells her that he knows the truth about her and Shyam and refuses to listen to her. On the other hand, Shyam, greedy for the Raizada estate and industries, plans to murder Arnav and arranges his abduction. Khushi manages to rescue him with the help of his NRI cousin - Nandkishore (NK) and Manorama. Arnav comes home, exposes Shyam, and throws him out, causing Anjali to fall into depression. Over the next few days, Anjali begins meeting Shyam secretly, who continues to deceive her with his manipulative ways. Meanwhile, Anjali and Arnav's paternal grandmother, Subhadra Devi (Dadi), arrives at Shantivan and takes an instant disliking towards Khushi, but Khushi receives support from Arnav and other family members. Subhadra Devi is also displeased to learn about Shyam and Anjali's separation and tries her best to bring Shyam back to Shantivan. During the Janamashtmi celebrations, Khushi realizes that her wedding ceremony lacked the rituals to bind her and Arnav in holy matrimony and thus insists that Arnav fulfill them. Subhadra Devi overhears this and insults Khushi. Arnav finally agrees to marry Khushi in an elaborate ceremony so as to make their relationship official. Subhadra Devi, however, is still displeased and tries to call off the wedding, suspecting a connection between Khushi's mother and Arnav's parents' death. Shyam gets a hint of this and plots to use it to his advantage in stopping Arnav and Khushi's wedding. It is revealed that Khushi's adoptive mother Garima had an extra-marital affair with Arnav's father, unaware of the fact that he was a married man. When Arnav's mother learns of this, she kills herself. This leads to Arnav's father taking his life, too, out of guilt. Subhadra Devi holds Garima responsible for the deaths of her son and daughter-in-law.

As the wedding preparations begin, unaware of Shyam's duplicity, Subhadra Devi encourages Anjali to meet and repair her relationship with him. Shyam, on the other hand, hatches a plan for Anjali's miscarriage, which he brings to fruition on her baby shower day. Anjali falls deeper into depression and adamantly asks Shyam to be allowed back in the house. Khushi notices that Anjali feels better in Shyam's presence and for the sake of Anjali's well-being decides to bring Shyam back to Shantivan, much to Arnav's displeasure. However, they reconcile and consummate their relationship.

On the wedding day, Subhadra Devi reveals the truth to Arnav about his parents' suicide. Initially shattered, he realizes that Garima was unaware of his father's marriage, and punishing Khushi for something that she did not do would be unfair. Arnav marries her despite Subhadra Devi's opposition and makes it clear to her that his father was to be equally blamed for their family's sufferings and that holding Garima alone responsible would be wrong.

On their wedding night, Arnav and Khushi discover several cameras hidden in their room and all over the Raizada house and realize that they could be placed by Shyam. With some investigative work, they further discover that Shyam was responsible for Anjali's miscarriage. Arnav, Khushi, and NK together expose Shyam, who confesses to his misdeeds. Anjali finally sees him for who he truly is and throws him out of the house.

The show was 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.[12][13] Dalljiet Kaur, Deepali Pansare & Akshay Dogra were finalized 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.[14]

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.[21]

I don't know when I first started noticing it. Perhaps it was the time I went to clear some goods I'd shipped from India a couple of years ago at one of Kingston's ports. After navigating the much improved process of recovering your possessions from the wharf, you finally end up in a large waiting room with about 50 chairs and a TV mounted on the wall in its own personal grille.

It was lunchtime by then. Sitting in front of me occupying the front rows were 15 or so large, tough-looking men, the kind of individuals who lift up crates and literally manhandle them, along with a few wimpier-looking folks there to claim their goods. All were glued to the TV screen on which a brilliantly coloured Indian soap opera was playing. The men were watching the melodrama with the helpless concentration of snakes following a mongoose's wily darts to and fro.

Some weeks later, the Smith sisters came to visit me. When I mentioned serving some Indian sweets, up jumped Sister No. 1 accompanying me to the kitchen saying she wanted to see if they were the kind of sweets Khushi makes. Khushi? "A who dat?" I asked, upon which Sister Smith informed me that Khushi was the star of Strange Love, one of two Indian soap operas CVM TV had started showing in their lunchtime slot, Monday to Friday from 1 to 1:30 and 1:30 to 2.

"Really? Indian soaps are melodramas of the sickly sweet variety. How on earth had they taken Jamaica by storm?" I wondered. Sister Smith assured me that they were such fun that not only she but her parents the goodly Reverend Smith and her mom as well as her brother, a financial analyst in New Kingston, were all hooked to Strange Love. In fact, at her brother's workplace, office workers threw 'Khushi parties' after work and spent Saturdays binge-watching the serial, while at home the goodly reverend could be seen shouting at the Indian couple to just DO IT. Just kiss the girl, no man, her father would yell in exasperation as Khushi's admirer spent days and weeks gazing into her eyes, while the background music intensified in volume and sentimentality.

Strange Love, or Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon, as it's called in Hindi, premiered in India in 2011. Comprising 398 half-hour episodes, the drama is the love story of an arrogant business tycoon, Arnav Singh Raizada, and his middle-class secretary, Khushi Kumari Gupta. Played by actors Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani, the series has propelled both to fame and stardom not only in India but around the world where the show is dubbed into the native language of the region it is shown in. After a few years when Barun left to pursue a career in Bollywood, the show's fans went berserk, demanding his return.

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