The popular television show ‘Ramayan’ based on Valmiki’s Epic Ramayana has become the highest viewed entertainment program globally. It registered record breaking viewership and created a world record when 77 million people watched the show in a single day. The record was created on the 16th of April at 9 p.m. Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan aired on Doordarshan for the first time between 1987 and 1988. The show features Arun Govil, Deepika Chikhalia, Sunil Lahri, Arvind Trivedi, Sanjay Jog, Sameer Rajda, Dara Singh and Bal Dhuri in lead roles.
Prasar Bharti CEO Shashi Shekhar announced last month that his team was working out the logistics of telecasting the Ramayan after the nationwide lockdown was announced. He had said that the issues will soon be worked out. The first episode had crashed Doordarshan’s website and became the top searched item on Google India. It trended at the top on social media platform.
Ramayan on Doordarshan attracted viewership from all sections of the population and millennials were hooked as well. Memes, jokes and discussions regarding the show flooded social media platforms. There were apprehensions that the re-telecast may not be very popular given the advancement of cinematography techniques, computer graphics and the changing taste of viewers, but Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan appears to have smashed all speculations.