Doordarshan to re-telecast ‘Ramayan’ starting tomorrow amid lockdown

TV: Responding to public demands of re-runs of 90s popular shows Ramayan and Mahabharat, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has announced that mythology series Ramayan will air again from March 28, Saturday. After the complete lockdown was announced in India in wake of Covid-19 pandemic, several people wrote on social media that rerun of the shows would be a good idea.

Announcing the development, union minister Prakash Javdekar tweeted Friday morning, “Happy to announce that on public demand, we are starting retelecast of ‘Ramayana’ from tomorrow, Saturday March 28 in DD National, One episode in morning 9 am to 10 am, another in the evening 9 pm to 10 pm. @narendramodi @PIBIndia @DDNational.”

Prasar Bharti had earlier said they are in talks to work out a deal with the rights holders of the epic tele-serials Ramayan and Mahabharat, to re-telecast these shows once again during the 21-day nationwide lockdown by popular demand. On Wednesday, Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar had tweeted, “Yes we are working on the same with the Rights Holders. Will update shortly. Stay tuned.”

With India coming to a standstill owing to the national lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, many on social media have written how these shows were hugely popular at one time. People also noted how life on Sunday mornings would come to a standstill when these serials were telecast on Doordarshan National.

Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan starred Arun Govil as Ram and Deepika Chikhalia as Sita, with Arvind Trivedi playing Raavan and Dara Singh essaying Hanuman. The series originally ran from 25 January 1987 to 31 July 1988.

BR Chopra’s Mahabharat featured Nitish Bhardwaj as Krishna and Roopa Ganguly as Draupadi, with Gajendra Chauhan, Praveen Kumar, Arjun, Sameer Chitre and Sanjeev Chitre as the Pandavas, and Punit Issar playing Duryodhana. The show ran originally from 2 October 1988 to 24 June 1990.