But then, there was suddenly a cultural swerve. All wildly successful, drunk in the limitless possibilities of drama, including death, rebirth, kidnapping, face-lifts, and hidden twins, they coincided with the penetration of television into interior India.

In the mid-aughts in India, “K-drama” would be used to describe Ekta Kapoor’s K-serial empire - Kasautii Zindagii Kay, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kaahin Kissii Roz, Kahiin to Hoga. They saw the early signs of success with I Am Not A Robot and Two Cops, and accelerated their pipeline, partnering with Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) and Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) to get the licensing of K-dramas to then translate, dub, and finalize a product that is injected like drip-feed, every week, into the veins of streaming circulation. This has been a project in the making for a while, bolstered by MX Player’s initial experiments with dubbed K-drama two years ago. It’s a program where every week they put out international shows - Korean, Japanese, Ukranian, Turkish, French, Spanish - dubbed into Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. In March this year, MX Player, India’s largest streaming platform, 47% of whose audience comes from the Hindi belt, launched V-Desi. In August last year, Dish TV, in an industry-first initiative, launched ‘Korean Drama Active’, where users could have access to Korean drama content dubbed in Hindi, at ₹1.3 per day. But this is by no means a prestige-Netflix phenomenon.

Indian dramas list