nafeesa F (Naf)

"tum(Aastha) khud ko bahut ziddi samajti ho na.. zid kya hoti hai tum jaanti hi nahi ho.. kyuki tumne abhi tak meri zid nahi dekhi" - Shlok Agnihotri This line by the male lead defines IPKKND EBP (till first 200 episodes). I love love this show. I never thought I would love any show as much as IPKKND1 in spite of being quite opposite of IPKKND1. This is an intense and well-written love story where families play a huge part. This story and characters feel real with their flawed characters, in their interactions and even in way they dress and live. The male lead Shlok Agnihotri is egoistic, demanding, intense and shrewd and the female lead Aastha Kirloskar is impulsive, gutsy, nosy and slightly immature. Shlok's ego and Aastha's impulsive nature collide from day 1 and Shlok decides to teach Aastha a lesson. This is the essense of EBP love story which was the main focus for first 200 episodes. The next 140 episodes were focused on exposing and resolving issues in Agnihotri household. Since the early episodes, EBP does a good job of introducing the flaws in the characters and issues in the lives of Agnihotri family and I was looking forward to their exposure and resolution along with the lead love story. I liked EBP till episode 340 when the story and characters revolved around Agnihotri household and didn't care about the tangent story and characters that were introduced later. My advise to viewers watching it for the love story is to stop watching after first 200 episodes as it becomes a family drama later. I liked the family drama because lot of issues posed and handled felt real to me and a smart villian was a plus. The big positive is this show feels real life in the encounters of leads (very little coincidences) and involvement/interaction of family members in their lives. Aastha's middle class life and dressing is so relate able and Shlok's desire/attraction for Aastha (yes desire not love) too. The love scenes in EBP are very mature too and not just gazing into each others eyes and hand holding. CVs did a great job in setting up the stage and characters from early days onwards that I felt there were enough conflicts to keep the story moving without needing to introduce new villians or situations. Negatives... there were too many. While CVs did a good job of setting the stage, they handled lot of key tracks poorly such as Swati-Aditi story and the entire track after Shlok leaves Agnihotri mansion. Also, they butchered Shlok's character from the shrewd and unrelenting man to stupid man who is just emotional on numerous occasions to make other characters look smarter. This was totally unforgiving as Shlok's shrewd and dark character made EBP special. It makes me angry that they had perfect characters and conflicts to make an amazing story and they handled it poorly on numerous occasions. Well, with all flaws and problems, I still love EBP for the lead paid chemistry, the real life characters and issues and the characters interactions with each other. All the supporting cast was amazing too.

I love love IPKKND and I think it is a must watch show for people who like Indian movies and dramas. I watched IPPKND when it was first running in 2011-2012... was hooked to it then. I rewatched it in 2018 after 6 years on Hotstar and could not stop watching the entire show from beginning to end until late hours in the night. I was hooked and fell in love with this show again. Is IPPKND perfect? No, it has some very obvious problems, but the portions that work, work like magic and there are loads of them. Starting from brilliant cast to amazing screenplay, direction and almost great editing. Let's start with things I love.The personality of each character especially leads have been written brilliantly. The hero Arnav Singh Raizada is highly successful brilliant businessman who oozes charisma and power in every shot. One might say typical Indian hero but the things that set him apart are his modern outlook on life/relationships, his passionate love for Khushi and the way he fights with everyone, for not just his girl but his friends/family and for what he believes and values. The heroine Khushi Kumari Gupta is more than your typical beautiful, docile and idealistic girl. She is a woman full of courage who is very strong willed and audacious enough to call out on everyone especially our hero, refuse an alliance arranged by her family and take care of the villian herself. I love the screenplay in this show too. Many dialogues and conversations are worth repeating over and over again. The leads and other cast say what needs to be said in the moment so the conversations in this drama are (mosly) logical and powerful. Good editing and tighter script than regular Indian dramas. Usual Indian dramas are filled with many boring side storylines that many of us want to skip over. IPPKND broke this trend by centralizing and maximizing the episodes around the leads. And when the leads are on screen they are fire and passion together, and hilarious and charming in individual scenes with other cast. The things that are questionable are situations that lead to our hero and heroine to meet again and again. The show loses some of its charm in the last quarter during/after the remarriage track and during the kidnapping track. It's like once the leads acknowledged their love for each other openly and decided to be together, the writers couldn't come up with any interesting story-line. But, that's still 300 episodes of epic love, hilarity and good family drama till then, so lots to enjoy. I would strongly recommend this serial to everyone.

Watch at your own risk. And IPKKND-1 & 2 fans, stay away from this. I'm an ardent fan of IPPKND-1 & 2 and I would love to watch another show from the same production house or show with the same cast, but what I really really want is amazing storyline, screenplay and characters. It was a miss on all 3 accounts. Barun is great, Shivani is ok. It just feels like she is just reading the lines without emoting or connecting with the character. IPKKND 3 got a Sanjay Leela Bansali makeover with big eloborate sets and vibrant colorful shots of locations but each episode is so hard to watch. The dialogues are unnecessarily dramatic, the camerawork and editing is bad with stepwise zooming (I hated this so so much!) almost 5-10 times every episode and screenplay seems to have been written as an afterthought. Barun repeats some of his famous IPPKND-1 dialogues like 'Battameezi toh maine abhi shuru bhi nahi ki' and Rabba Ve is played for some lead scenes but these look forceful and unimpactful compared to the original versions. To be honesh, I watched few episodes here and there and not the complete show, so I'm not the best judge of every aspect of the show. But, I didn't enjoy any of the episodes I watched. If you want some of Barun and IPKKND magic, just watch IPPKND and not this show.