General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Aadha Ishq

Aadha Ishq (आधा इश्क) is an Indian Hindi-language romantic drama web series directed by Nandita Mehra and produced by 24 Frames Media, which premiered on the streaming platform Voot Select on 12 May 2022. Its nine episodes tell the story of a mother, Roma, and her teenage daughter, Rene, who both fall in love with the same man, Saahir, an artist who had a romantic history with Roma a decade earlier.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	12 May 2022, exclusively on Voot Select¹
Format	Season 1, 9 episodes of roughly 28 to 51 minutes each³
Lead cast	Aamna Sharif (Roma), Gaurav Arora (Saahir), Pratibha Ranta (Rene), Kunaal Roy Kapur (Milind)¹
Director and production	Nandita Mehra; 24 Frames Media²
Filming locations	Gulmarg, Srinagar and Mussoorie¹
Age rating and language	UA16+, Hindi, dubbed in Tamil and Kannada²
IMDb rating	5.9/10 from about 12,000 user ratings⁴
Current streaming	JioHotstar, free with ads⁵

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series follows Roma (Aamna Sharif), a woman who fell in love with the artist Saahir (Gaurav Arora) in the Kashmir valley in 2012, and whose marriage to Milind (Kunaal Roy Kapur) has since broken down. In 2022, Saahir, now a well-known artist working as a professor, re-enters Roma's life after ten years and meets her daughter Rene (Pratibha Ranta), a college student who falls in love with him before learning that he is the man her mother once loved. What brought Saahir back, and with what motives, forms the central tension of the story.¹^•⁶

Supporting roles. Suchitra Pillai plays Karen, Darsheel Safary plays Jas, Rene's boyfriend, Pooja Bhamrrah plays Sameera, and Gautam Ahuja plays Addy; Vishal Karwal appears as Aman in a cameo.¹^•⁷ Milind, though separated from Roma, refuses to divorce her in order to keep control over her, a storyline that reviewers found stretched across the season.⁶

Episodes

All nine episodes were released on 12 May 2022. Their titles are, in order: "Ye Ishq Ajab", "Gustakh Dil", "Shiddat", "Main Tenu Hi Mangeya", "Daayre", "Aaj Jaane Ki Zidd Na Karo", "Agar Tum Saath Ho", "Beparwah Dil", and "Mann Bharya".¹¹ The final episode ends on a note suggesting a second season.¹⁰

Production

The series was directed by Nandita Mehra, who had previously helmed television shows including Uttaran and Pavitra Rishta, and produced by 24 Frames Media, the Mumbai production house she runs with former actor Bhairavi Raichura. Aadha Ishq marked the company's tenth year in production.⁸ Writing credits go to Mehra, Jaya Misra, Raghuvir Shekhawat, and Natasha Fernandes, with poetry by Gulzar, who also lent his voice to it; the composer was Pranaay and the cinematographer Sunita Radia.⁷^•⁹

The screenplay moves between past and present, contrasting the 2012 romance in Kashmir with the 2022 storyline, and was filmed in Gulmarg, Srinagar, Mussoorie, and other locations in Kashmir and Uttarakhand.¹^•⁶ Art is a recurring motif: Saahir is a painter, and paintings, sketches, and craft appear through much of the series.¹⁰

Reception

Critical response was largely negative. The Times of India gave the season 2.5 out of 5, with an average user rating of 3.8 out of 5, writing that the show "offers nothing new" within the familiar love-triangle premise and that its love stories do not feel convincing on screen, though it praised Aamna Sharif's performance as Roma and the Kashmir and Mussoorie backdrops.⁶ Popcorn Reviewss rated it 2 stars, calling it "a long and uneventful tale of love which suffers due to its weak writing", while crediting the music, background score, and cinematography, and judging Pratibha Ranta's performance the strongest of the leads.¹² OTTplay, rating it 2.5 out of 5, found the execution chaotic but noted that the series opens a conversation on marital rape through Milind's character.¹⁰ On IMDb the series holds 5.9 out of 10 from about 12,000 ratings.⁴

Availability

The series was a Voot Select original. After Voot's content was folded into JioHotstar, Aadha Ishq became available there, streaming free with ads in India; in Egypt it streams on STARZPLAY.⁵^•¹³ The Plex database lists the show as canceled after one season.¹⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026