Ramayana – Religious themes hit small TV screen
Ramayana was not the first instance of an effort based on a religious theme being made either on celluloid or the tube, in India. Various attempts have been made to present Ramayana, but none matched the immense canvas and elaborate razzmatazz of ‘Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana.’
When any endeavors to review and analyze it’s phenomenal popularity are made; one has to do it on various parameters and taking into account several preconceived opinions. The sacred reverence which is accorded to Ramayana and related scripts in the country, the absolutely Divine personification of Ram and Sita in the Hindu psyche, the staunch and total involvement of many of our populace with anything even remotely connected to religion were definitely decisive factors in the serial’s popularity. But this is not the least to deprive the credit from where it is due; the man, who dreamt, conceived and executed it all – Ramanand Sagar.
The importance and reach of Television as a medium was never in doubt after the colors invasion in 1982. Soap operas like ”Hum Log” and ”Buniyaad” had well established the effectiveness of TV as a versatile medium, if explored and exploited tactfully. The banner of Sagars was a sunset brand in Bollywood with a string of box office flops. What Ramanand Sagar may have initially desired was to use the tube to being the popular and sacred epic in a well packaged and presented form to both, resurrect his popularity and may be enhance his bank balances in the process. Both his wishes were duly fulfilled but in gigantic proportion to the dream. The response was supernatural as were the characters of the epic.
If the serial ‘Ramayana’ is reviewed only on its merit as a TV serial, without any preconceived opinions regarding the epic, bouquets and brick bats can be both used aplenty. Some every fine performance by Arvind Trivedi, , Nalin Dave, Sanjay jog, Arun Govil (partially) and many others shall remain etched in memory for long. The playback scores by Ravindra Jain, particularly the lyrics and the music (though too cacophonous and imposing at times) and a very well written and researched script by Ramanand Sagar were largely instrumental in glueing millions to their TVs.
But some very poorly done battle scenes, the unimaginative special effects of Ravi Nagaich and the unnecessary dragging and repetition of shots (as if it was unable to pass time justifiably) left a lot to be desired.
It must be put to the credit of the producers that they did their homework well. After all, how could they risk hurting the religious feelings and sentiments of the masses. After going through many versions of the epic, and keeping in mind the present socio-economic conditions prevalent, they made what we saw. In spite of all these efforts, controversies could not be totally averted. Of The three appearances that Ramananad Sagar himself made as an epilogue, two were only to explain his point of presentation and interpretation of certain episodes.