| Prem Sagar on the family's mythical juggernaut on the small screen. |
My father had a vision. He felt in theatres he could show his work only to a miniscule and controlled audience
Carrying on the legacy Prem Sagar believes three generations of Sagars learnt filmmaking only to make 'Ramayan' twice.
Many don't know that the Sagars also gave us box office blockbusters like 'Aankhen', 'Arzoo', 'Charas' 'Lalkar' and 'Bagawat', all of which, ironically, had nothing to do with mythology. 'We believe three generations of Sagars learnt filmmaking only to make 'Ramayan' twice. All our hard work on the big screen has been overshadowed by one serial,' says Prem Sagar, who looks after Sagar Arts along with his brothers after the demise of his father, the legendary Ramanand Sagar who established the banner in 1950.
A product of FTII, Prem photographed many of his father's big hits. 'It was when we were shooting for 'Charas' on the Switzerland-France border, that one of the local acquaintances invited us to his house. There, for the first time, we watched television. It was 1975. On that very day, my father declared that he will shift to television.'
The visionPrem recalls it took them a decade to shift. We were doing very well and Sagars were considered as one of the big families of Bollywood. Just closing our distribution offices across the country took 8-10 years.' It was not an easy move. 'My father had a vision. He felt in theatres he could show his work only to a miniscule and controlled audience who pays to see a movie. We create an ambience by switching off the lights. Even if he doesn't like the film more often than not he watches the film because he has spent his hard earned money. On television everything would be free and we could have a 40 crore audience watching our creativity. So the possibilities are huge. Here, a youngster could move out to talk to his girlfriend, if we are not catering to his sensibilities. And at the same time if we are good, there is nothing that can stop us from hooking him.'
Ramanand Sagar
Prem was sent to market the idea in different parts of the world. 'Nobody took us seriously. People said Sagars have gone mad. When everybody is going north, they are going south. Even big names like Hindujas and Swaraj Paul didn't buy the idea. Eventually, we decided to go for a test run.' Prem reveals 'Vikram aur Betaal' was a test run for 'Ramayan'.
'Ramanandji wanted to know whether the audience is ready for a big budget serial. So we roped in a cosmetic major to sponsor 'Vikram aur Betaal'. You remember the same set of actors who played lead roles in the series ' Arun Govil, Dipika and Sunil Lahiri (Lakshman) ' were repeated in 'Ramayan'. 'Vikram aur Betaal' was a huge success and the rest is history. Today, 'Ramayan' has been shown in 50 countries across five continents,' says Prem, still excited about the success. 'People again laughed at us when we launched Prithviraj Chauhan.
Today it is among the highest rated shows. Similarly 'Jai Maa Durga' has opened to a TRP of 3.6 which is massive these days. With 'Jai Maa Durga', we have completed the trilogy (Ramayan and Shri Krishna are the other two) which our father wanted to make in his lifetime.'
The side-effectsA section of academics has also talked about the contribution of 'Ramayan' in raising the rabid right wing and the revival of a political party. 'See, we have never taken 'Ramayan' as a mythological story. For us it is the story of an ideal human being. Perhaps that is the reason that it was equally popular in Karachi.' He cites BBC reports which claimed that the serial was popular among Christians as well.
Like the last time, Prem says the main source is Tulidas's Ramcharitmanas. 'We have also consulted the works of Valmiki and Kamban.' On difficulties in presenting Ram as today's hero for many in young generation can question his decision to abandon Sita, Prem says, 'We feel since Ramayan came to us through oral tradition, it has gone through several changes over the years. First it was in Sanskrit, then when Pali became the language of the masses it got translated into Pali'what we have today is a polluted version. Otherwise, such an act of deception doesn't match with the character of Maryada Purshottam. We didnt want to show the episode in the first version. It was only after public protests that we showed Uttar Ramayan. There also we consulted Radhakrishna Ramayan, which says that Sita knew beforehand that Ram is going to abandon her after a washerman made a comment. To keep the credibility of her husband intact, she herself opted for an exile. People filed cases against us in courts for fiddling with the religious sensibilities of people but we stuck to our stand.
The Sagars are now returning to films. 'The third generation wants to explore the medium again. Last year we had '1971', which got good reviews. Now we are working on four films, two are love stories and the others are fantasies.' Another ripple in the Sagar ocean?
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