Nakuul Mehta celebrates 10 years of ‘Ishqbaaaz’, revisits first shoot day in Mumbai heat

Television star Nakuul Mehta took a trip down memory lane, as he revisited the early days of his popular show Ishqbaaaz. He recalled how it all began on “a burning afternoon in the outskirts of Mumbai with a crew of over 200 people.”

Sharing a series of throwback pictures and videos on social media, the actor revealed how a fan congratulating him for 10 years of Ishaqbaaz, at the airport, brought back a rush of memories from the time the show first went on floors.

He wrote, ““A bunch of random good people I ran into on my way to a flight to Jaipur this morning congratulated me on ten years to a show which defined love for them. Given how chaotic early morning flights can be.. it wasn’t until I rested my back on my Indigo seat did a bunch memories come rushing back and I ended up rummaging my phone for photographic evidence. (cause who even are we without them?)”

Reflecting on the very first day of shoot, he added, “A decade can be a long time measured in passage of time. But strangely our first day of filming seems pretty vivid in my head. On a burning afternoon in the outskirts of Mumbai with a crew of over 200 people. I spent the larger part of the day waiting in my van until shot was called closer to midnight. Strangely never have I felt as self assured on the first day of anything… Cut back to the first day of filming, circa April 23rd, 2016.. We did a few takes of the walk with the brothers and almost magically it seemed to come together for everyone on the monitor.”

Nakuul shared a few BTS moment and stills from ishqbaaz that featured Surbhi Chandna, Shrenu Parikh and others.

Speaking about the lasting impact of the show, he further shared, “The rest of it however seems like 3 years were crunched up into a few multiple hundred episodes which unto this day continues to find newer and a lot of repeat audiences given how streaming has made television immortal. Sometime I feel it’s not even the show but it’s who we were whilst making the show is where we find comfort.”

He concluded on an emotional note, “For the audiences, some of it is the friends they made whilst this show became their home and for a lot of us it was a time in life when you found a cast and crew which was hungry to play off each other, have fun and make a bloody good show! Whilst so much has happened in the past decade, folks got married, some of us made kids, we lost a dear cast member this year.. what remains unchanged is that everytime someone comes and tells me ‘their’ story of Ishqbaaaz, my heart beams with immeasurable joy.”

Talking about the show, Ishqbaaaz first aired in 2016 and ran successfully until 2019, and went on to become one of Indian television’s most loved dramas of that time.

The show starred Nakuul Mehta as Shivaay Singh Oberoi, alongside Surbhi Chandna, who played Anika. It also featured Kunal Jaisingh and Leenesh Mattoo as the other Oberoi brothers.

The show’s popularity led to a spin-off titled Dil Boley Oberoi, which focused on the lives of the other brothers and starred Kunal Jaisingh and Shrenu Parikh in lead roles.