Ramayan becomes world's most watched entertainment show: Doordarshan

Television serial Ramayan, based on the popular Hindu mythology, has broken records to become the world's most watched entertainment show with 7.7 crore viewers on April 16, Doordarshan tweeted on Thursday.  

The lockdown, which began on March 25 and is set to go on till at least May 3, has led to production shutdowns and a freeze on fresh episodes of current TV shows, forcing channels to dig into their archives to bring back old favourites, including the first major TV retelling of the epics, Ramayan and Mahabharat, that have been remade several times since. 

Ramayan is being re-aired on Doordarshan since March 28. There are a total of 78 episodes based on Valmiki Ramayana and Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas. 

Ramayan featured Arun Govil as Ram, Deepika Chikhalia as Sita and Sunil Lahri as Lakshman. The show also featured Late Dara Singh as Hanuman and Arvind Trivedi as Ravana. The show was originally telecast from 25 January 1987 to 31 July 1988. Actors Arun Govil, Deepika Chikhalia and Sunil Lahri reunited to celebrated 33 years of the iconic TV serial. Deepika, who played Sita, said no one would casually greet her, instead people would fall at her feet and say 'Sita Ma'. When asked if they wouldn't feel 'itchy' wearing all those extravagant costumes, Arun Govil who played Ram said that after a point of time, he felt 'itchy' by the mere sight of the costumes.

After Ramayan, more than 20 years after its broadcast, Ramanand Sagar's epic mythological series Shri Krishna is next set to make a comeback on Doordarshan. Created, written and directed by Sagar, the series chronicled the life of Lord Krishna. The show was first broadcast on Doordarshan's Metro Channel (DD 2) from 1993, but moved to DD National in 1996.

Shri Krishna starred actor Sarvadaman D. Banerjee as the adult Krishna, while Swwapnil Joshi played the teenage version of the character. The show also starred Deepak Deulkar, Pinky Parikh among others.