Posted:
Ramayan gets millions of eyeballs day after day. It is not official yet, but the makers, the TV channel and all those concerned are raking it in.
The trend - or call it copying - has caught on. Even Ekta Kapoor, the reigning queen of family soaps who has raked in billions, is said to be working on Mahabharat.
Ekta,You were supposed to make Mahabharat for Star. Now we hear that you will now make the same for some other channel?
I don't think that I will be making Mahabharat. Yes, I was supposed to make it for Star. But they have now hired some big names like Chandraprakash Dwivedi and Bobby Bedi for Mahabharat,so I changed my plan.
Ramayan is back as a serial on the small screen with a new avatar, and different versions of Mahabharat are being planned for both TV and the big screen.
Beginning Jan 21, Ramayan has re-appeared as a mega-serial on a new channel, NDTV Imagine. It has proved a sure shot, like Rama's arrow, with audiences across the country.
The story is familiar; so too the characters and costumes. The dialogues are more crisp and in Hindi made easier for the new century's metrosexuals and those aspiring for the urban goodies.
Now, Star Plus channel is launching Mahabharat. It is as if the clock and calendar are going back. The last time the epics ruled the TV, there were high expectations from Rajiv Gandhi, a young prime minister. People had gone through the trauma of his mother, prime minister Indira Gandhi, being assassinated. Epics projected a godliness that calmed the public mind.
That was also the golden era of India TV, just gone colour, with family audiences glued to the idiot box. B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat followed Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, and both had successful runs. They brought into vogue a highly Sanskrit-ised Hindi and a renewed reverence for family elders.
Being made for the small screen, filming of epics posed technological challenges. They were met entirely by Indian expertise drawn from Bollywood. Mahabharat devised its own techniques to shoot war scenes, involving thousands of men, elephants and horses, for the small screen.
A negative impact, some political analysts and sociologists have said, was the revival of an ethos that, when worked on by some political parties, fuelled a religious divide. A consequence of this divide was demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992.
Happily so far, the same "godliness" is helping people stay on their traditional course now in a resurgent India where the middle classes are flush with funds, or with prospects of prosperity.
In a sense, like the changes on the economic scene, this "epic" change was waiting to happen. Like the way India hesitantly bade goodbye to socialism in the early 1990s.
The epics are expected to push out the unending family dramas that thrive on glamour, loud dialogue and family strife, much of which is contrived. Nasty women characters are seen as "liberated", a misplaced sense of women's lib. And all of them look similar and highly predictable. Viewership is sliding.
"Indian TV needed a calming antidote that is positive, not taxing at all, soothing and comfortable, something that could be watched at the end of a tiring day. And since the story is known, missing an episode would not matter," says Shailaja Kejriwal, executive vice-president for content, NDTV Imagine.
In more sense than one, TV takes over from grandparents, since the traditional story-tellers who passed on the ancient wisdom are becoming extinct in a India that is urbanising fast and giving rise to nuclear families.
Indeed, my interest was kindled by my grandmother. By 12, I had read Mahabharat, not understanding, though, much of the nuances and the underlying philosophy. But I understood the stories, and they have remained with me. They made me a good story-teller and a strong believer in India's cultural traditions. Its religious ethos, too, as long as it is not exploited for political gain.
These epics are part of the collective psyche, irrespective of one's faith in India. Not surprisingly, there were protests when the government goofed up last year and told the supreme court that it did not believe Lord Rama had existed at any time in the history. Not because anyone who is above politics and politics of religion believes that Ram was actually a historical character. It was - and protesters included ulama and Christian clergy - because the government's action was seen as totally unnecessary and hurtful to this collective psyche.
Ramayan has fewer characters, each of them virtuous. Rama is maryada purushottam, the ideal man. Even Ravana is highly educated and has his own code of conduct, however flawed. Much of Ramayan, like Rama, is how an individual, a people, should be.
Ramayan is about an ideal prince, while Mahabharat has numerous heroic but seriously flawed characters. Even Lord Krishna is a strategist and adviser who resorts to clever tactics to favour the righteous. At a certain level, no matter how you present these stories, it is difficult not to be consumed by the two epics - they can be told to every age and every generation.
By contrast, Mahabharat is all about how people and things are. It is deeply complex and has a myriad sub-plots. The characters are numerous but believable. Both are flexible, allowing for interpretation. Mahabharat, the world's longest epic, moves like a thriller with a series of events strung together. Whatever is not in it does not exist, because it has every emotion in the world.
Renowned filmmaker Aparna Sen is all set to realise her dream project of telling Sita's story in Ramayan.
"I want to do my own version of the Ramayan as told from the point of view of Sita. I want it to be a truly international film in English. It needs international funding and a whole lot of detailed production planning. But it's my most cherished project."
Meanwhile, Sen's favourite protege, Rituparno Ghosh, has his heart set on making the Mahabharat from Draupadi's point of view.
Both epics have been filmed and interpreted many times over in literature, on stage and since the cinema began nine decades back. They have undoubtedly shaped the Indian ethos.
The complexity of this ethos is difficult to explain. Even if not religious, the reverence comes in when mythology is related to the public through stage or screen. Theatre director Aamir Raza Hussain, who did The Legend of Rama in English in the mid-1990s, did everything to retain the ethos of the epic.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/Columns/219399 0/Article/index_html
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article&am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;sectid=12&contentid=200803312008033102191224547809f
The trend - or call it copying - has caught on. Even Ekta Kapoor, the reigning queen of family soaps who has raked in billions, is said to be working on Mahabharat.
Ekta,You were supposed to make Mahabharat for Star. Now we hear that you will now make the same for some other channel?
I don't think that I will be making Mahabharat. Yes, I was supposed to make it for Star. But they have now hired some big names like Chandraprakash Dwivedi and Bobby Bedi for Mahabharat,so I changed my plan.
AFTER a break of nearly two decades, Indian TV is once again harking back to the mythological past, this time hoping to go global, using corporate funds and the latest technology.
Beginning Jan 21, Ramayan has re-appeared as a mega-serial on a new channel, NDTV Imagine. It has proved a sure shot, like Rama's arrow, with audiences across the country.
The story is familiar; so too the characters and costumes. The dialogues are more crisp and in Hindi made easier for the new century's metrosexuals and those aspiring for the urban goodies.
Now, Star Plus channel is launching Mahabharat. It is as if the clock and calendar are going back. The last time the epics ruled the TV, there were high expectations from Rajiv Gandhi, a young prime minister. People had gone through the trauma of his mother, prime minister Indira Gandhi, being assassinated. Epics projected a godliness that calmed the public mind.
That was also the golden era of India TV, just gone colour, with family audiences glued to the idiot box. B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat followed Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, and both had successful runs. They brought into vogue a highly Sanskrit-ised Hindi and a renewed reverence for family elders.
Being made for the small screen, filming of epics posed technological challenges. They were met entirely by Indian expertise drawn from Bollywood. Mahabharat devised its own techniques to shoot war scenes, involving thousands of men, elephants and horses, for the small screen.
A negative impact, some political analysts and sociologists have said, was the revival of an ethos that, when worked on by some political parties, fuelled a religious divide. A consequence of this divide was demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992.
Happily so far, the same "godliness" is helping people stay on their traditional course now in a resurgent India where the middle classes are flush with funds, or with prospects of prosperity.
In a sense, like the changes on the economic scene, this "epic" change was waiting to happen. Like the way India hesitantly bade goodbye to socialism in the early 1990s.
The epics are expected to push out the unending family dramas that thrive on glamour, loud dialogue and family strife, much of which is contrived. Nasty women characters are seen as "liberated", a misplaced sense of women's lib. And all of them look similar and highly predictable. Viewership is sliding.
"Indian TV needed a calming antidote that is positive, not taxing at all, soothing and comfortable, something that could be watched at the end of a tiring day. And since the story is known, missing an episode would not matter," says Shailaja Kejriwal, executive vice-president for content, NDTV Imagine.
In more sense than one, TV takes over from grandparents, since the traditional story-tellers who passed on the ancient wisdom are becoming extinct in a India that is urbanising fast and giving rise to nuclear families.
Indeed, my interest was kindled by my grandmother. By 12, I had read Mahabharat, not understanding, though, much of the nuances and the underlying philosophy. But I understood the stories, and they have remained with me. They made me a good story-teller and a strong believer in India's cultural traditions. Its religious ethos, too, as long as it is not exploited for political gain.
These epics are part of the collective psyche, irrespective of one's faith in India. Not surprisingly, there were protests when the government goofed up last year and told the supreme court that it did not believe Lord Rama had existed at any time in the history. Not because anyone who is above politics and politics of religion believes that Ram was actually a historical character. It was - and protesters included ulama and Christian clergy - because the government's action was seen as totally unnecessary and hurtful to this collective psyche.
Ramayan has fewer characters, each of them virtuous. Rama is maryada purushottam, the ideal man. Even Ravana is highly educated and has his own code of conduct, however flawed. Much of Ramayan, like Rama, is how an individual, a people, should be.
Ramayan is about an ideal prince, while Mahabharat has numerous heroic but seriously flawed characters. Even Lord Krishna is a strategist and adviser who resorts to clever tactics to favour the righteous. At a certain level, no matter how you present these stories, it is difficult not to be consumed by the two epics - they can be told to every age and every generation.
By contrast, Mahabharat is all about how people and things are. It is deeply complex and has a myriad sub-plots. The characters are numerous but believable. Both are flexible, allowing for interpretation. Mahabharat, the world's longest epic, moves like a thriller with a series of events strung together. Whatever is not in it does not exist, because it has every emotion in the world.
Renowned filmmaker Aparna Sen is all set to realise her dream project of telling Sita's story in Ramayan.
"I want to do my own version of the Ramayan as told from the point of view of Sita. I want it to be a truly international film in English. It needs international funding and a whole lot of detailed production planning. But it's my most cherished project."
Meanwhile, Sen's favourite protege, Rituparno Ghosh, has his heart set on making the Mahabharat from Draupadi's point of view.
Both epics have been filmed and interpreted many times over in literature, on stage and since the cinema began nine decades back. They have undoubtedly shaped the Indian ethos.
The complexity of this ethos is difficult to explain. Even if not religious, the reverence comes in when mythology is related to the public through stage or screen. Theatre director Aamir Raza Hussain, who did The Legend of Rama in English in the mid-1990s, did everything to retain the ethos of the epic.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/Columns/219399 0/Article/index_html
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article&am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;sectid=12&contentid=200803312008033102191224547809f
