Yogi Adityanath (L), chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, welcomes artists dressed as the Hindu deity Ram, his wife Sita and his brother Laxman during Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya, October 18, 2017.
Ramayan t v serial serial#
It didn’t help that the serial felt fairly sluggish too. Deshpande’s putdown in the Economic and Political Weekly, I’m sure, would have offended us: “There is little to be said in favour of the Sagar presentation of the Ramayana Sita cannot even weep properly.” For Deshpande and other critics like him, Sagar’s Ramayan was, at best, a flimsy pastiche of calendar art and shoddy special effects. No one, for instance, ever mentioned that in the English press, the show was being derided for being kitschy and soppy. My family’s piety never allowed for critique. In the 78 weeks it took for Sagar to televise the epic, I accessed culture for the first time.
In a fairly religious household, Ramayan was not entertainment, it was a ritual. I remember my family had invested in a colour television around the time, and one of my earliest memories is of hiding behind the couch each time Ram met a rakshas (demon) in his path. I was four when Sagar’s Ramayan premiered on January 25, 1987. While our entertainment reveals who we are, it can sometimes warn us about who we might become.Īlso read: Ayodhya’s Class of 1992: The Key Conspirators The fact that his Ramayan still has the power to enthral millions tells us something about Sagar’s art, but its history also reminds us of malicious appropriation. The average viewership of an episode is then said to have jumped from 40 to 80 million in no time. Through television, he had taken the Ramayana and told its story to a mass audience for the first time. In the late 1980s, Ramanand Sagar had done something altogether novel. Several users have uploaded Sagar’s Ramayan on YouTube, but even collectively, online viewership can’t compete with the numbers Doordarshan has seen.
Ramayan t v serial plus#
Ramanand Sagar, it was certain, had given Prasar Bharati a fresh lease of life again, but when Star Plus too began telecasting the show on May 4, Javadekar’s clumsy gambit, it seemed, had worked. On April 16, according to a DD India tweet, Ramayan smashed world records with a single day viewership of 77 million. According to the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), 42.6 million people were tuning in to every episode. In just two days, Ramayan had clocked a total viewership of 170 million. Shortly after he was publicly ridiculed, however, numbers came in which vindicated the minister.
They called him “Mr Antoinette”, rubbishing his imploring caption: “I am watching ‘Ramayana’, are you?” When Javadekar deleted the tweet, his Ramayan dream, we felt, had been reduced to a puddle. It didn’t take long for the memes to crop up. When contrasted with their plight, Javadekar’s photo-which saw him smiling and wearing flip-flops-was considered thoughtless by many social media users. Hungry, thirsty and defeated, thousands of migrant labourers were stranded as they tried to find a way home. But when on March 28, he went on to tweet a picture of him enjoying the serial on TV, the backlash was both swift and deafening. The prospect of a long national lockdown with its de facto curfew had given the minister for information and broadcasting a perfect stage to recreate the past. In 1987-88, Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan would result in what many compared to a curfew.
Ramayan t v serial series#
The show will air from March 28 at 8 pm on Doordarshan. Sharing the tweet, official Twitter handle of DD National tweeted, "Good news for - ENJOY #ShahRukhKhan's #Circus - TV Series (1989) - From 28th March at 8 pm on your favourite channel #StayHome India and enjoy this #Lockdown21 as #IndiaFightsCorona.On March 27, Prakash Javadekar tweeted, “Happy to announce that on public demand, we are starting retelecast of ‘Ramayana’ from tomorrow.” DD national schedule and telecast timing Show Name These shows included BR Chopra's Mahabharat, Shah Rukh Khan most loved TV shows of the 80s Circus, and bringing in a dash of nostalgia are shows like Dekh Bhai Dekh, Shaktiman, Byomkesh Bakti and others.