The city always feels a little different when a film catches fire. The air sharpens, the hoardings glow brighter than they should, and every auto driver suddenly has an opinion that sounds suspiciously like a Friday trade analyst. All week, Mumbai has been humming that way for Tere Ishk Mein, the unlikely storm that drifted in quietly and then, almost playfully, crossed the ₹100 crore worldwide mark before anyone had finished arguing about its first-day footfalls.
Truth is, there is something irresistible about watching Dhanush haunt a frame. He carries a kind of bruised poetry on his shoulders, the kind that never begs for attention yet steals it anyway. Pair that with Kriti Sanon, who has finally slipped into a romantic-drama skin that feels lived in rather than styled, and you get a film that moves with the slow burn of monsoon thunder. No wonder theatres kept filling up, even as the weekday reality tried to soften the chaos of that opening weekend.
The numbers tell their own story, a crisp echo beneath all the noise. Friday opened at around sixteen crore, a solid but unflashy start that felt almost modest compared to the frenzy of festival releases. Saturday climbed to seventeen crore, Sunday nudged further to eighteen point seven five, like the film was warming its hands over the collective pulse of the audience. By Monday, the dip arrived, eight point seven five crore, the kind that usually sends trade circles into their familiar binary of panic or prophecy.
But Tuesday answered back with ten point two five crore, a quiet reminder that this film had no intention of slipping away. Even Wednesday’s six-point-something finish, depending on whose counter you trust, carried just enough stamina to push the worldwide gross into that coveted three-digit zone. That happened on Day 6, almost casually, as if the film looked up midstride and realised it had already crossed a landmark.
Honestly, it felt like a vindication for Dhanush. Hindi cinema has adored him in bursts, never consistently, always with a kind of outsider fascination. But with Tere Ishk Mein, he now holds the highest-earning Hindi film of his career. There is a tenderness in that victory, a slow-earned respect wrapped in box-office figures that finally match his critical aura. For Kriti too, this might be one of those turning points that are easy to miss at first glance but eventually define a new lane in her filmography.
And yet, the charm of Tere Ishk Mein lies not just in its wins but in the market it walked into. It arrived in December, already humming with anxiety. Big-ticket releases like Avatar: Fire and Ash and Dhurandhar are waiting just beyond the corner, heavy with franchise muscle and studio confidence. Everyone knows that once they land, screens will shuffle, showtimes will narrow, and the gentle middle-class romance of Tere Ishk Mein will face a new kind of survival test. But that is the beauty of this film’s run so far. It thrived in the soft spaces, the weekdays, the pauses between hype cycles. It earned its crores through consistency rather than shockwaves.
I spent an evening outside a suburban multiplex, just watching the post-show crowds spill out. Couples walked slowly, still mid-conversation, like the film had tugged something loose. Groups of college kids compared their favorite scenes with a kind of dramatic exaggeration only youth can manage. An older man wiped his glasses with a handkerchief before declaring to no one in particular that Dhanush reminded him of “actors from the old days.” These reactions are not statistical, but they explain the stats better than any spreadsheet ever will.
There is also an interesting quiet confidence around the film’s economics. A domestic net of roughly seventy-six point seven five crore by Day 6 is no small feat in today’s uncertain box-office climate. The industry has been craving patterns, formulas, and guarantees. Tere Ishk Mein offers none of that. It is simply a film that connected, scene by scene, day by day. The love story at its core might be traditional, but its performance has been anything but predictable.
But here is the catch. The next four or five days will determine if the film settles into a sweet, steady phase or bows gracefully as the bigger releases crash in. The trade conversation is already shifting, talking in phrases like holdover strength, footfall sustainability, and screen retention. Yet audiences rarely think in those terms. If they return for a second watch or coax a friend to join them for a late-night show, the numbers will stretch. If not, the film’s first six days will stand as a glowing, self-contained chapter of its journey.
And just like that, Tere Ishk Mein has become one of those titles that float gently between commercial success and cultural mood. You hear its name in cafés now, whispered over shared desserts. You see it in playlist suggestions, on Instagram stories that blur romance with melancholy. It has slipped into the city’s bloodstream in the way certain films do without warning, the ones that feel handcrafted rather than engineered.
Maybe that is what makes its box-office climb feel sweeter. Not the hundred crore milestone, impressive as it is, but the sense that the film earned its applause through emotion rather than extravagance. Through faces that felt human, through a story that did not rush to impress, through performances that lingered long after the credits softened into darkness.
There is still a little runway ahead. The film may stretch toward new benchmarks or simply savor the space it holds right now. Either way, this first week has given it a legacy. A romantic drama released in crowded December skies, managing to claim its own constellation, however briefly.
And if you listen closely, somewhere between the chatter of ticket counters and the glow of phone screens, you can almost hear it. The quiet heartbeat of a film that became a hit not by shouting, but by staying.
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Zayn blends critical thinking with genuine fandom. Whether it’s decoding OTT series arcs or rating the latest Bollywood blockbuster, he writes with clarity, pop fluency, and a dash of irreverence.
