He made Ram India's cultural icon

[Guest guest]

He made Ram India's cultural icon

 

Saurabh Tankha / New Delhi

 

It was in 1942 that an astrologer in Kashmir told Ramanand Sagar that

he would change the world. At that time, he didn't even have money to

buy milk. Change he did, a nation's identity, churning and frothing up

a movement with his epic Ramayan, one that made Hindutva a matter of

collective pride and social connectivity.

 

The uninterrupted two-year run of Ramayan marked a turning point in

the history of Indian television. He precipitated a "national bandh"

Sunday mornings by bringing the gods into every household in India,

humanising them and converting our pantheon into a social reference

point. Did Ramayan act as a brandwagon to promote Hindutva?

 

Says Arvind Trivedi, who played Ravana in the TV epic, "Hindus always

knew about the epic called Ramayan but it was limited by the oral

tradition. And though there were Ramlilas in village India, there was

never a visual counterpart for urban India, which was slowly opening

up to a rapidly homogenising world. Ramayan, the teleserial, made Ram

a sophisticated culture icon, something you could have with Sunday

brunch and not feel guilty about.

 

There was this strange enthusiasm about being a Hindu all over again.

Sagar sahab was a pious man who taught us the lesson of humanity

before anything else. He would have loved being proud of weaving a

collective consciousness, anything that brought people together, from

the north to the south, the entire length and breadth of the country."

 

Author Mridula Sinha, who recently completed a biography on Sita,

feels, "Through Ramayan history was created. It laid out the formula

for re-establishing sanatan values. Our youth was moving away from our

culture and values. Ramayan brought them back." Sagar not only brought

awareness and peace among the society through the serial, he also set

an example of national integrity. Be it Hindus or Muslims, everyone

was in front of the TV at 10 on Sunday mornings."

 

Agrees music director Ravindra Jain who worked with Sagar on Ramayan.

"We got numerous letters from Muslim households that their kids had

started massaging the feet of elders. Not this alone, it ushered in a

revivalism among the youth, they wanted to get back to their roots."

 

Jain, who took over from the legendary music director Jayadeva who

fell ill during the making of Ramayan, adds, "I completely agree with

the fact that the serial got us back to our tradition and values.

Logon mein ek nayee jagriti jag gayee thee Ramayan dekhne ke baad."

 

However, author-writer Manohar Shyam Joshi, who never had a chance to

meet the director, is sceptical of Sagar's revivalist streak and feels

he was much an unwitting culture crusader. "How could he have thought

Hindutva? He had been a Leftist all his life before he planned and

made Ramayan. It was only during the making of the serial he started

wearing a rudraksh mala. If someone makes an epic or a mythological

film, he would have to talk about religion and so did Sagar," he adds.

 

But Babuji, as he was fondly called by peers and his juniors,

certainly enjoyed being patriarch of one big happy family. And its values.

 

 

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