My favourite TV show

Hello everyone. I Hope everyone is good here. So this is Rishabh and I'm here with another steemit post today in this post I'll elaborate about my favourite TV show not just mine it's a show that is favourite of almost every Indian.

All about TV show

The TV show name is Ramayan if you check about this show it is used to run in late 1980. Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan, which was a rage in the late 1980s, has made a comeback at a time when the 21-day lockdown has forced people indoors

What Ramayan is all about?

Ramayan is an Indian-television historical series, which aired between 1987 and 1988 on DD National, created, written, and directed by Ramanand Sagar. It is a television adaptation of the ancient Indian Hindu epic of the same name, and is primarily based on Valmiki's Ramayan and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas

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The popular mythological series, 'Ramayan', which is being rebroadcasted on Doordarshan during the Coronavirus lockdown days to great appeal has smashed viewership records worldwide. 'Ramayan', the Ramanand Sagar-directed TV serial became the world's most-watched show on April 16 with 7.7 crore viewers, DD India posted on its official Twitter handle on Thursday.

The plot of the series is based on the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana and the series follows the journey of Lord Rama

A total of 78 episodes of 'Ramayan' were made by Ramanand Sagar based on Valmiki's Ramayana and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas. The serial is being re-telecast again since March 28 on public demand as a source of entertainment during the COVID-19 lockdown days. When the serial was telecasted for the first time on DD, it had broken all records of popularity, and the show has repeated its history again.

When the serial had initially started airing in the country, people used to flock to their TV sets, which were much sparser at that time. Since there were fewer TVs, many would watch as communities, with there being moving accounts of people reacting to events on the show as though they believed what was playing out before them was the 'real' Ramayana rather than a TV serial, as the lines between reality, fiction, makebelieve and mythology blurred and devotion peaked.

My favourite character and why

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think the one character which is misinterpreted the most is Shurpnakha. Yes, that hideous looking demon sister of Ravana, who dared propose Rama and the Lakshman,

Even though I admire all the lead characters, Rama, Sita, Laxman, Urmila, Bharat, Hanuman, Jatayu, and Ravana too (for the sake of knowledge and righteousness) for different reasons, I feel this woman, who had courage to follow her wishes in that era, is not given enough credit which should have been, considering the fact that, it was she, who planted seeds of the greatest battle between Ram and Ravana.

I know, not many people will sympathize with my answer. Because we have always thought of her as the ugliest women in the world, as depicted by Valmiki, a prominent author of Ramayana. But I beg to differ in this opinion, considering the fact that her childhood name was “Meenakshi” (Woman with beautiful eyes of the shape of fish). I like to refer another version in this case by Tamil poet, Kambana, who describes her as a very beautiful woman with long, beautiful, fish-shaped eyes (validating her birth name of Minakshi), a slender figure and bewitching personality. In addition, she possessed magical powers and could assume any form, an ability which Kamban asserts she used in trying to seduce Rama.

As per this another version, she grew up to be as beautiful as her mother Kaikesi (who herself was the daughter of a Gandharva princess). She then secretly married Danava prince Vidutjihva, which enraged Ravana due to the inherent enimity between Rakshasa and danava clan. She was later widowed because Ravana killed Vidutjihva.

Which other female character in the great epic Ramayana, do we see the guts to choose her husband against her brothers wishes?

In Uttara Ramayana, it is stated that she became furious after this and hence, the jungles were allocated to her in order to pacify her and make amends and she was also given the rights over all males in the forest. She then goes through the three worlds in search of a new husband .

Coming to the main twist in the story, Shurpanakha, a widow now, while roaming in Panchavati in Dantaka aranya (forest), sees the wandering Ram, Lakshman and Sita. She is smitten by Rama’s youthful handsomeness and falls in love with him. The Maryada purushottam of all the time, declines her offer, for he is following “Ek-Patni-vrata”. However, in Kamban version, Rama is taken aback seeing this beautiful lady and thinks that he must check her out. Shurpanakha however explains that she is a Rakshasi and that is when Rama replies that he cannot marry her (he may have otherwise?). When even proposes a gandharva wedding for lovers to him.

We can see her honesty here, and probably an authority to her demand, considering the above mentioned facts. Now, this of course annoys Rama and he goes on to ridicule her by passing her on to Lakshmana, saying ‘Here is my heroic brother Lakshmana. He is young, leading a celibate life and a good match for you. Take him as your husband and lover."

But Lakshmana was not interested, he says he is merely a slave to Rama and that she must try again with Rama, thus he passes her back to Rama. Some versions say she gets irritated at this point and looks at Sita as her rival. So she advances on Sita to kill her, when Lakshmana interrupts and chops off her ears and nose. In some other versions, Lakshmana takes offense at the adulterous nature and her demands to choose her partner herself much against the norm, for which he punishes her with the mutilation.

Now, honestly, can we not feel angry at such handling of a woman (presumably a young and beautiful one) between two brothers (the most righteous one’s) as a mere object of amusement? And in all records, how can we justify the act of mutilating her for a sin of expressing her desires for a man? was this not sowing seeds of the misogyny that is still prevalent today?

If go by the Kamban version, I can say Shurpanakha is my favorite character, because, despite being beautiful, powerful and opinionated woman, which was not very common at her age, she is dealt with most injustice.

When the show ran

Ramayan' serial was originally broadcasted from January 25, 1987, to July 31, 1988. Later it was aired on TV every Sunday, at 9.30 am. Till June 2003, it remained recorded in the Limca Book of Records as "the most-watched mythological serial in the world'. Later it started again during the lockdown to keep inside home watching this tv show**.

main casts

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Arun Govil as Shri Rama

Deepika Chikhalia as Sita/Lakshmi

Bhushan Lakandri as Lord Vishnu
Sunil Lahri as Lakshman

Arvind Trivedi as Ravana / Sage Vishrava
Dara Singh as Hanuman

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Shooting location

In the Ramcharit Manas, Tulsidas has told about the costumes of Rama and Sita and we had to look like that. This was the first time the Ramayana was being shown on television. Sunil Lahiri told in an interview that due to being away from home for weeks, he had lost contact with the outside world. Sunil says, "There were no mobile phones. There was a telephone booth some distance away from where we were shooting. We used to call home turn by turn. Many times, we had to wait in line to get our turn. The shooting location of 'Ramayana' was in Umargram, Surat. Along with Dara Singh, his son Vindu Dara Singh also visited the set several times.He says, 'The entire cast and crew of the serial used to go to Surat by train. The shooting was for 5-6 days and then they used to come back to Mumbai for 2-3 days."

Thank you everyone for reading i hope you liked it you can Google about Ramayan to know more about it