Tamil dentist Ishita lyer and Punjabi businessman Raman Bhalla live in Delhi and are neighbours. Due to Ishita being infertile, her mother struggles to find a groom for her while Raman is a divorcee. Ishita forms a motherly bond with Raman's daughter, Ruhi, who was abandoned by Raman's ex-wife, Shagun when she left Raman for his wealthy boss, Ashok Khanna. Ishita and Raman hate each other, and their families get embroiled in quite a few misunderstandings about each other, cultural differences notwithstanding. Eventually, Ishita and Raman marry to help Raman secure Ruhi's custody, calling it a marriage only on papers for Ruhi's sake. With time though they fall madly in love with each other and consummate their marriage.
Shagun continues to create trouble for the two throughout but later mends her ways. She unites their son, Aditya, with the Bhalla family and becomes the surrogate mother to Ishita and Raman's daughter, Pihu. Nidhi, a scheming lawyer kidnaps Pihu. Ishita rescues Pihu but Nidhi escapes with Ruhi. They are presumed dead in an accident. Raman blames Ishita and break ties with her. Guilt-ridden, Ishita attempts suicide and is presumed dead.
Ishita is alive and living in Australia with her childhood friend, Mani, and raising his niece Aliya, who is coincidentally working as a secretary for celebrity Ruhaan. Ruhaan is actually Ruhi, who is now an adult and lives with a torturous Nidhi under this new identity. Raman is raising his daughter Pihu, who exactly looks like young Ruhi with Shagun and he hates Ishita for all the past incidents. Ishita finds out about Ruhi and reunites with Raman. Shagun and Mani get married. Aditya falls for Aliya, and they marry. Young Pihu, however, is unwilling to accept Ishita as her mother having grown up with Raman and Shagun.
Shagun, Mani, Aliya, and Pihu are living in Bangkok. Raman keeps a close eye on them. Pihu finally meets Ishita and accepts her as her mother, and they return to India. Pihu accidentally pushes her cousin, Ananya down the stairs, and she dies. Ishita takes the blame to save Pihu and is arrested.
Raman's sister, Simmi and her husband, Param, torture Raman and Ishita for Ananya's death. However, Ishita is ultimately vindicated. Aditya begins to conspire against Raman and kidnaps Roshni who he was cheating on along with cheating Aliya. Ishita fatally shoots Aditya to save Roshni.
Eight months later, Ishita shelters a pregnant Roshni, who is carrying Aditya's child. She is kicked out of the house because the family blames her for the death of Aditya, especially Raman, except a few others such as Ruhi and her cousin Bala but doesn't hate them as she doesn't blame them for hating her. When Raman is framed for a fake scandal, Ishita steps up and defends him, saving him and his family's reputation. The family apologises to her for ruining her life but she forgives and reunites with the Bhallas family after saving Raman and Roshni delivers a son, who is named after Aditya. Raman apologises for the way she treated her after Aditya's death and hurting her emotionally badly but she isn't angry at all and also apologises to him for what happened. They both forgive each other and reunite again. Roshini later leaves to prevent more complicated situations for the family which leaves them heartbroken. Ruhi falls in love with Karan, whose brother Rohan falls for Aliya. The Bhallas meet Aditya's lookalike, Yug.
Aliya deludes herself into believing Yug is Adi and falls in love with him, leaving Rohan. Drugged by man named Arjit Saxena, Raman falls into a coma. Later, he fully recovers, returns, and reunites with his family thanks to Ishita's love and care for him. As Karan and Ruhi prepare to marry, Ruhi discovers that she is infertile just like Ishita. Karan's mother Sudha plans to cancel the marriage, but later she accepts Ruhi. Ruhi and Karan marry and adopt a baby girl. Ishita and Raman too marry once again and on their reception Preesha Srinivasan, a gynaecologist also Ishita's niece visits them who is raising her nephew Saransh alone. The rest of the story continues through Preesha under the banner Yeh Hai Chahatein.
Cast
Main
Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya as Dr. Ishita "Ishu" Iyer Bhalla: A dentist; Vishwanathan and Madhavi's younger daughter; Vandita's sister; Mihika's cousin; Preesha's aunt; Raman's second wife; Aditya and Ruhi's step-mother; Pihu's mother;Yug's adoptive mother;Jr. Aditya's step-grandmother (2013–2019)
Karan Patel as Raman Kumar Bhalla: A businessman and CEO of Bhalla Group; Omprakash and Santoshi's elder son; Romesh, Simran and Rinki's brother; Shagun's ex-husband; Ishita's husband; Aditya, Ruhi and Pihu's father; Yug's adoptive father; Jr. Aditya's grandfather (2013–2019)
Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya, Karan Patel and Ruhanika Dhawan as Raman, Ishita, and Ruhi during the launch of Yeh Hai Mohabbatein
Kapoor said, "I created Divyanka's character as a dentist in 'Yeh Hai Mohabbatein', as I was having a lot of tooth trouble those days. My dentist sorted my problems a lot, so I brought that character alive"[4]
The show was initially titled Custody as it was based on Manju Kapur's 2011 novel Custody.[5] It was renamed to Mera Tera Rishta Purana before again being changed to Yeh Hai Mohabbatein.[6] The production began about a year before its premiere, but the launch was delayed due to creative differences and desired time slots being unavailable.[7]
In November 2019, Ekta Kapoor revealed, "When I started Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, I remember going to Gaurav Banerjee from Star Plus and asking him for a non-prime time slot because I wanted to do a show on a social issue. I had stopped watching much television and I wanted to make YHM without the trappings of a TRP driven show. A show about a woman who cannot have children, a stepmother who according to Indian terms is considered bad! Words in India like barren and evil stepmother got used so often and labelled women in the worst poss way. This show got so much love that it went on for six years. And from a non-prime time slot to a prime-time slot."[8]
In September 2014, Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor were to promote their film Finding Fanny, which also starred the Yeh Hai Mohabbatein lead Tripathi Dahiya and Patel.[9] Patel was unable to make the shooting, and so the script was changed in his absence at the last minute, as Deepika and Arjun could not reschedule.[10]
On 11 May 2016, during filming of the wedding sequence of characters Romi and Mihika, the shoot was stalled owing to a fight between the production house and workers union.[11] On 25 July 2018, the shoot was stalled for a while during bandh in Mumbai.[12]
The story revolves around a famous rockstar, Rudraksh Khurana, and a gynaecologist, Dr Preesha Srinivasan who fall in love after raising their respective siblings' son together.
Despite first airing in the late night slot 11:00pm (IST), Yeh Hai Mohabbatein received better ratings than expected and ranked as the fourth most popular show on Star Plus.[37] In 2014, on audience request, it was moved to a dual slot of 7:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. (IST). Star Plus SVP marketing Nikhil Madhok stated that the move was made after audiences' feedback that a section of viewers found the 11:00 p.m. slot too late. He further explained, "This was a show where repeat viewing the next day or viewing on online digital medium is very high. So the dual airing will not only help the existing viewers who love the show to watch it twice but also add a whole new set of viewers".[37]
Starting in January 2017, the show fell in the TRP ratings when the show's focus shifted to the new generation.[38] The show remained popular in the UK, being the most-watched Indian show there.[39][40] The climax of the arc involving Ruhi and Nikhil, leading to Ananya's death, brought a sudden spike in the ratings in the first week of November 2017 (week 44) and the series secured a place amongst the Top 10 shows after almost a year off this ranking.[41] With the Budapest arc and the focus back on the main leads, the show reached the Top 5 in the second week of November 2017 (week 45).[42][43] In week 46 of the year 2017, the show further climbed to the fourth spot on the TRP chart, thus becoming the most-watched show on StarPlus.[44] In week 47 of the year 2017, the show remained at No. 4 on the TRP charts and continued to be the most-watched show on StarPlus. The show continued to do well maintaining its No. 1 position on StarPlus in the following weeks. In week 51 of 2017, Yeh Hai Mohabbatein emerged as the most-watched show across all Hindi GECs. (General Entertainment Channels)[45]
In week 8 of the year 2018, the show remained at No. 3 on the TRP charts and continued to be the most-watched show on STAR Plus.[46] In May 2018, the show was shifted to 10:30 p.m. from 7:30 p.m. which led to a fall in TRPs. Roshni's baby arc was received poorly by fans, which led to a further downfall in TRPs. StarPlus intervened, asking the producer, Ekta Kapoor, to change the storyline of the show while also giving it a 6-month deadline to increase the ratings. Ishita's fake death drama to expose Param led to the show re-entering the top 20 shows in week 31 of the year 2018 occupying 18th place with 3889 million viewership.[47] After the change in show timings to late night TRPs have dropped ranging from 1.2 to 1.4 mostly but had been the slot leader since then. After being unable to pull up the TRP and lack of constructive story, the show went off air on 18 December 2019, giving space to the Yeh Hai Mohabbatein spin-off called Yeh Hai Chahatein.[citation needed]
