Ek Mahal Ho Sapano Ka, the precursor to the tide of saas-bahu sagas that swept Indian television in the last two years, has just crossed the 900 episode milestone on Sony.

A product from the Shobhna Desai Productions stable, the original nightly soap that follows the happinesses and tragedies of a Gujarati joint family, Ek Mahal... claims to be the longest running soap on Indian satellite television. It still has some way to go though if it wants to catch up with the Marathi series Damini which completed 1,000 episodes on DD Sahyadri on 16 May.

Produced by Shobhna Desai, directed by Vipul Shah and scripted by Aatish Kapadia, Ek Mahal... is a bilingual serial, the Gujarati version - Sapana Na Vavetar - ran on DD Gujarati.

Ek Mahal... started its run on Sony in 1998, according to an official release. The serial, claims the release, commands a wide Indian audience in the UK and USA and has been a launch pad for more than 200 Gujarati theatre artists thus far.