On a rainy night in Karachi, Khirad, played by Mahira Khan, gets drenched in the rain. Her black Anarkali suit is an extension of her beauty, already enhanced by her spontaneity and innocence. Ashar, played by Fawad Khan, falls in love with Khirad. It was Humsafar.

Not just Ashar, thousands of Indians have also fallen in love with Khirad. This scene from a Pakistani series would become one of the most watched scenes in India.

Humsafar, the 23-episode mini-series, has garnered over 10 million views on YouTube. It was uploaded by a Pakistani television channel, Hum TV.

Many of the millions of people who viewed the clip are from India.

Humsafar first aired in India in 2014. But the saga of India’s love for Pakistani serials is not a decade-old story: this dates back to at least the late 1980s.

For Indians, most things related to Pakistan, be it cricket or politics, are a love-hate story. However, Pakistani serials have found lasting love from Indians, over decades and generations.

This is why even Indian Gen Z is indulging in Pakistani series along with their usual Netflix dope.

While many of them discovered the shows through Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts, others inherited the love from their family members.

Indian Gen Z’s love for Pakistani dramas is visible on Instagram, a social media platform dominated by them, Humsafar’s reels are very popular with thousands of likes.

The love for India can be seen in the comments section.

“Just watching this reel makes me so happy,” wrote an Indian Instagram user.

“What would I do to see this scene again for the first time,” another commented.

India’s ties with Pakistan are uneven given the country’s history of harboring and exporting terrorism to India. Pakistan, which tried to bleed India for Kashmir, severed diplomatic ties after the revocation of Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

However, it is a shared culture and civilization that unites the two peoples.

“I find Pakistani serials relevant because our cultures are similar. Our families are also similar,” Anamika, a 26-year-old political science researcher from Hisar, told India Today Digital.

It’s the “sameness” of people across the border that surprises some Gen Zers who watch Netflix.

“It’s interesting how the people you’ve been told to hate your whole life are so simple and they’re so much like you,” Varul, a 22-year-old journalist based in Noida, told India Today Digital.

Young Indian audiences also find Pakistani series very relevant.

There are several factors, including the tense storytelling with a limited number of episodes, that hooked Indians to Pakistani series decades before Netflix introduced the concept of mini-series to Indian living rooms.

INDIAN LOVE FOR PAKISTANI SHOWS GOES BACK TO THE 1980S

Indians have been watching Pakistani drama series at least since the late 1980s.. At that time, people rented video cassette players and recorders (VCPs and VCRs) to binge on movies and drama series.

“I loved watching Pakistani shows in the 80s and 90s. We watched them through VCRs rented from video stores,” Swaty Prakash, who works for a Delhi-based NGO, tells India Today Digital.

This whole addiction started with Pakistani comedy shows.

“Several slapstick comedy shows like Budhdha Ghar Pe Hai were very popular,” says Prakash, 45. She started watching the shows in her early teens.

Lamat Hasan, a Delhi-based journalist who lived in Islamabad from 2007 to 2013, says people loved watching comedy shows like Bakra Qiston Pay.

Tanhaiyan and Dhoop Kinarey were two of the most watched Pakistani dramas in India in the 80s and 90s.

These series were a hit in Jodhpur, Lucknow, Srinagar and all over Punjab.

It was the time of the government television channel Doordarshan, and Pakistani series were only available on video cassettes in India.

Things changed in the cable television era.

HOW ZINDAGI MADE PAKISTAN SERIES POPULAR IN INDIA

For the new generation, the pinnacle of Pakistani dramas came with the launch of Zee’s Zindagi channel in 2014.

Shows like Zindagi Gulzar Hai and Humsafar became an instant success. Other shows like Daastan and Mere Afzal have also gained popularity in India.

Even Indian filmmakers and actors enjoyed these shows.

“#ZINDAGI on #zee draws my attention to interesting plays with real people with real houses rather than our shows full of make-up and made-up twists,” Shubhash Ghai wrote in 2014.

“Man, I got hooked and watched 3 serials in a row on Zindagi… I think this channel with its content will be a serious threat to all serials,” actor Javed Jaafri wrote on X.

However, Zee’s Zindagi had a short lifespan as it had to pull the plug in 2017. It discontinued all Pakistani serials, the channel’s USP, after the 2016 Uri terror attack.

REASONS WHY INDIAN LOVE PAKISTAN SERIES

For Prakash and Hasan, it was the relatability and storytelling that attracted them to serials from across the border.

“Western shows like Friends were aspirational, but Pakistani shows were more relevant,” says Prakash.

“We used to watch shows like Tanhaiyaan. It’s also that these stories were delicately told and were interesting,” Hasan told India Today Digital.

While Zee Zindagi aired Pakistani serials, Indian audiences were also wooed by lehza (etiquette) and libaas (dress).

Now, as Gen Z takes a liking to Pakistani shows available on OTT and YouTube, they are also developing a taste for Urdu and Pakistani clothing.

“I like the way they incorporate Urdu in their dialogues. It keeps me hooked on every word spoken,” says Anamika, the Hisar-based researcher.

“What’s impressive is the story and the theme, the depth and the way they integrate their culture into the storyline,” says Varul, the 22-year-old journalist.

One of the main reasons why Pakistani series are a hit among Indians is that they are made up of around 30 episodes. Some do not even exceed 15 episodes with tight narration. Compare this to saas-bahu series made in India, which sometimes run for 1,000 episodes.

Pakistani actor Fawad Khan, who was part of Zindagi Gulzar Hai and Humsafar, also highlighted the situation in a 2014 interview.

“They (the Indians) make soap operas. They don’t make mini-series. They’re not doing a 10-20 episode series,” Khan told Ahmad Ali Butt.

He also linked the quality of Indian serials to their distribution in 1,000 episodes.

“If you do the math, 26 episodes versus 500 episodes, if the content is small, then obviously the quality will be better and the story will be engaging. If you stretch the same characters over 1,000 episodes, you’ll get bored after a while. That’s the difference,” the Pakistani actor added.

WHICH PAKISTANI DRAMAS INDIAN GEN Z WATCH

Pakistani soap operas are now on YouTube and OTT platforms like Zee5. Zindagi Gulzar Hai and Humsafar were also on Netflix India.

India’s latest Gen Z favorite is Kuch Ankahi (2023).

Swaty Prakash says that it is his young colleagues at his NGO based in Delhi, mostly in their twenties, who now suggest to him which Pakistani series to watch.

Sar-e-Rah, a 2023 miniseries starring Saba Qamar, which tells stories of marginalized women and transgender people, is popular in India.

The same goes for Bakhtawar (2022), starring Yumna Zaidi. It is based on the real story of a woman who lived in Lahore and dressed like a man to protect herself.

Kahi Unkahi and Mohabbat Subh ka Sitara Hai, two family dramas, and Suno Chanda, a romantic comedy, are also popular among Gen Z in India.

Some shows, like Dil Kya Karay (2019), even feature Rabindra Sangeet, the music of Rabindranath Tagore.

These shows are also becoming popular through Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. There are hundreds of reels with the original soundtracks (OSTs) and shows.

Come to think of it, Pakistani serials have been watched by Indians for over three decades across all formats. From VCRs to Cable TV channels, OTT and YouTube. The medium has changed, the love has remained the same. This love is now passed on by the younger generation of Indians.