The success of Sarmad Sultan Khoosat’s Humsafar pretty much defined Pakistani audiences’ affinity for soft romances and love triangles. So is it surprising why our television audiences have fast become addicted to Ishq-i-Mamnoon, an out-and-out a love story which appeals to audiences of all ages?

Ishq-i-Mamnoon (Aþk-ý Memnu) is a popular Turkish romantic drama television series and the first-of-its-kind imported drama from a Muslim country to hit the local drama circuit.

Produced by Ay Yapým Productions and broadcast as 79 episodes from 2008-10, the story is adapted from Halit Ziya Uþaklýgil’s novel Aþk-ý Memnu, which depicts the glamorous, elite and modern lifestyle in Istanbul instead of the novel’s late 19th-century backdrop.

While the young generation of television viewers have no idea of the golden days of Pakistani TV drama and the older ones rant in vain about the lost legacy, drama buffs have happily settled down to this Turkish delight after becoming immune to samplers from Balaji and the likes.

Viewers have become smitten by the Bold and Beautiful-styled plot set in a dream mansion on the scenic Bosporus Strait where Adnan Ziyagil, a rich widower lives with his two children — the beautiful Nihal (Hazal Kaya) and Bülent (Batuhan Karacakaya) — along with a band of domestic help in important support roles. Then there is the hunky playboy Behlül (Kivan Tatlitug as the male lead), a distant relative and responsible for attracting the huge female viewership.

To add to the juice, the children’s nanny Deniz fancies Adnan but who marries the gorgeous and much younger Bihter (Beren Saat), the female lead. Bihter has her own agenda and has married Adnan out of revenge against her mother, Firdevs, who fancies him. Bihter loves Behlül and so does Nihal, while Behlül is already engaged. They waltz, wine and dine, there are suicide attempts, emotional trauma, physical escapades (for the detail of which viewers turn to YouTube) and forbidden love galore defines much of the plot that unfolds onscreen.