Long before our lives were ruled by the cablewala, set top boxes, DTH, HD and blah blah blah, Doordarshan was the only TV channel, and for people of my generation a huge part of our lives. We could not wait for the evening to come when a huge ball of orange slowly truned into the Doordarshan logo, I clearly remember as kids my sister and I would eagerly look forward to our summer vacations to our nani's home in Saharanpur. Ofcourse there was the joy of going to nana, nani ke ghar, this was doubled by the fact that we could watch TV there. You see at the time all the places my father was posted (Jalgaon, Dhule), had no TV transmission. TV only came to Dhule in 1984. Until we had to contend with the B/W TV of my grandparents! We would religiously watch krishi darshan, the hindi samachar, I love lucy and only go to bed after bidding the anchor shubhratri!
Our world changed with the TV coming to Dhule, 1984, around the time the first hindi serial (that is what we called soaps then!) "Hum Log" came on air. Hosted by the veteran actor Ashok Kumar, "Hum Log", with its middle class ethos, became a part of our daily lives. It was a story about a middle class family, in Delhi, trying to make ends meet. It had the eldest and the most pampered child (laloo), the responsible elder daughter (badki), the ambitious majhli, the intelligent chutki, and light-eyed cutie-pie nanhe played by Abhinav Chaturvedi, the grandparents, drunkard father with his long suffering wife! Till today Vinod Nagpal is known as Basesar Ram and Sushma Seth as dadi! Coming to think of it almost of the actors of Hum Log are till today known by their screen names. A testament to the love and affection showered on them by the whole country.
Of course there was no looking back after Hum Log. Manohar Shyam Joshi, who wrote Hum Log, created magic again with Buniyaad; directed by Ramesh “sholay” Sippy. Another mega-serial; this time about a family dealing with the repercussion of the partition. Many serials have been made with the parition theme, but unfortunately none managed to create the magic of Buniyaad. How can we ever forget Master Haveliram (Alok Nath), the khadi-clad-idealistic eldest son of a wealthy businessman who is interested in the freedom struggle? And then there is the chirpy Lajjoji (Anita Kanwar), her friend and masterji's sister veerawali (Kiran Juneja). The serial deals with Haveliram's struggle to hold on to his ideologies and his duty towards his family. After the partition the family moves to Delhi and new characters are added, Masterji & Lajjoji's sons played by Dalip Tahil, Mazhar Khan and Kanwaljeet. Mazhar Khan will always be remembered for his character to a happy-go-luckly fellow, who is always eager to make a quick buck! While Alok Nath went on to become the lovable father of hindi serials and Rajshree films, unfortunately Anita Kanwar disappeared into oblivion, and Kiran Juneja, famously went on to marry the producer of the serial, the much older Ramesh "sholey" Sippy.
While talking about partition, the one name the immediately comes to mind is the hard-hitting Tamas, written by Padma Bhushan Bhisham Sahani (the younger brother of veteran actor Balraj Sahani). A very serious look at the partition, this serial attracted the who's who of the acting fraternity. Bhisham Sahani himself acted in the serial along with Dina Pathak, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Surekha Sekri, Uttara Baokar, Deepa Sahi. This epic serial was directed by Govind Nihalani.
At the time Doordarshan serials were weekly, running into 13, 26 or 52 episodes, this trend was changed by the mega serials Ramayan & Mahabharat. Once they were on air Sundays were never the same again. Ramayan was produced by Sagar Arts and starred Arun Govil and Deepika Chiklia as Ram & Seeta and the indomitable Daara Singh as Hanuman (can't think of anyone else as Hanuman, can we now?!). Cities wore a deserted look on Sunday mornings when Ramayan was aired, as if a curfew has been imposed, and there dare not be a power-cut for the half hour! Recently Imagine TV also produced Ramayan, but could not capture the audience's attention as the earlier one. An original is an original, after all!
The mega-serial was soon followed by another epic, of truly gigantic proportions...Mahabharat, produced by B R Films. Producing this serial must have truly been a herculean task, for Mahabharat has no. of stories woven into one. Very soon Mahabharat commanded the same attention as Ramayan and soon on every Sunday, Suresh Wadekar echoed from every television. Harish Bhimani was the voice of "time", who acted as the narrator of the tale. People waited with bated breaths, wondering who will play the "pandavas", initially disappointed but soon warmed upto them. Nitish Bahardwaj played "Krishna" and till today finds himself bound by the image.
This was the time of weekly episodes, not daily soaps and "maha episodes". Everyone waited eagerly for their favourite ones. Much before ACP Pradyumna and his "daya darwaza tod do" CID gang came to investigate crime, Karamchand jasoos had already made his mark. Along with his scatter-brained secretary Kitty, he solved many-a-complex murders. Pankaj Kapur & Sushmita Kitty Mukherjee made an unlikely crime-fighting team, which endeared themselves to the audiences.
DD also supported a whole genre of comedy. Good clean family entertainment unlike the comedy shows of today, which rely heavily on slapstick and double meaning dialogues. The top-of-the mind recall goes to Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. Who can rival this iconic serial? The serial written by comedy writer Sharad Joshi starred Shafi Inamdar and Swaroop Sampat as the husband wife duo Ranjit and Renu Verma. The serial also starred Rajesh Bedi as Renu’s unmarried unemployed brother, while Satish Shah played a different part in each serial…and enthralled everyone with his comic timing!
While talking about the comedy genre, it would be sacrilegious not to talk about Nukkad…a serial about a street corner; which could have been anywhere in an Indian metro. The daily trials and tribulations of the residents of this street corner managed to make a place in every DD watching Indian’s heart. The serial co-directed by Kundan Shan and Saeed Mirza, starred Dilip Dhawan (the heart of gold “Guru”), Rama Vij (lovable teacherji), Avtar Gill and Pavan Malhotra amongst many other memorable characters.
And then there was “Wagle Ki Duniya” ; a satirical take on the struggle of the common man. Starring Anjan Srivastave and Bharati Achrekar, this serial soon became a mass favourite.
I remember serials on DD such as Ek Kahani, Darpan, Kathasagar; which featured adaptions of stories by award winning writers of Hindi and other regional languages. In today’s world of daily soaps and saas-bahu dramas, which cannot distinguish themselves from each other; one feels the need of powerful writing. There is no dearth of writers only experimental production houses. Maybe if they look beyond the “K” fascination! I wonder who would take the time and the effort that Govind Nihalani took to televise Jawahar Lal Nehru’s Discovery of India?
Talking about diversity in serials, I can’t help but remember Gul, Gulshan, Gulfam; which portrayed the life of a Kashmiri family making a living with their 3 house boats. The patriarch of the family was played by the very talented Parikshit Sahani and Radha Seth as his wife. The serial shot in Srinagar also starred Pankaj Berry, Neena Gupta and Kunal Khemu.
Looking back there are so many wonderful memories of DD; Many serials that became a part of our lives, conversations, heated debates and now our memories. Serials that gave us the badshah of Bollywood; Shah Rukh Khan (fauji, doosra Kewal). The quiz shows that everyone watched with rapt attention, the half an hour of cartoons on Sunday; that any day beat the 24 hr cartoon channels. Not to forget the Sunday movie, the chitrahaar…who needed MTV and channel V?! This was the time when DD ruled and the TV had not turned into the idiot box. The television actors of the time were not one-soap wonders, but were a talented group of actors who made their presence felt by strong characters. Today we may never see an actor again, nor remember their real names, but we will always remember Sudhir Pandey, Neena Gupta, Pavan Malhotra, Shafi Inamdar amongst many many other talented actors. DD might have lost its sheen in the glossy world of HD TV and 24 hr channel, but in my mind DD is a special memory which always puts a smile on my face. I might have missed so many serials which u might remember, do share ur special memories!
Our world changed with the TV coming to Dhule, 1984, around the time the first hindi serial (that is what we called soaps then!) "Hum Log" came on air. Hosted by the veteran actor Ashok Kumar, "Hum Log", with its middle class ethos, became a part of our daily lives. It was a story about a middle class family, in Delhi, trying to make ends meet. It had the eldest and the most pampered child (laloo), the responsible elder daughter (badki), the ambitious majhli, the intelligent chutki, and light-eyed cutie-pie nanhe played by Abhinav Chaturvedi, the grandparents, drunkard father with his long suffering wife! Till today Vinod Nagpal is known as Basesar Ram and Sushma Seth as dadi! Coming to think of it almost of the actors of Hum Log are till today known by their screen names. A testament to the love and affection showered on them by the whole country.
Of course there was no looking back after Hum Log. Manohar Shyam Joshi, who wrote Hum Log, created magic again with Buniyaad; directed by Ramesh “sholay” Sippy. Another mega-serial; this time about a family dealing with the repercussion of the partition. Many serials have been made with the parition theme, but unfortunately none managed to create the magic of Buniyaad. How can we ever forget Master Haveliram (Alok Nath), the khadi-clad-idealistic eldest son of a wealthy businessman who is interested in the freedom struggle? And then there is the chirpy Lajjoji (Anita Kanwar), her friend and masterji's sister veerawali (Kiran Juneja). The serial deals with Haveliram's struggle to hold on to his ideologies and his duty towards his family. After the partition the family moves to Delhi and new characters are added, Masterji & Lajjoji's sons played by Dalip Tahil, Mazhar Khan and Kanwaljeet. Mazhar Khan will always be remembered for his character to a happy-go-luckly fellow, who is always eager to make a quick buck! While Alok Nath went on to become the lovable father of hindi serials and Rajshree films, unfortunately Anita Kanwar disappeared into oblivion, and Kiran Juneja, famously went on to marry the producer of the serial, the much older Ramesh "sholey" Sippy.
While talking about partition, the one name the immediately comes to mind is the hard-hitting Tamas, written by Padma Bhushan Bhisham Sahani (the younger brother of veteran actor Balraj Sahani). A very serious look at the partition, this serial attracted the who's who of the acting fraternity. Bhisham Sahani himself acted in the serial along with Dina Pathak, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Surekha Sekri, Uttara Baokar, Deepa Sahi. This epic serial was directed by Govind Nihalani.
At the time Doordarshan serials were weekly, running into 13, 26 or 52 episodes, this trend was changed by the mega serials Ramayan & Mahabharat. Once they were on air Sundays were never the same again. Ramayan was produced by Sagar Arts and starred Arun Govil and Deepika Chiklia as Ram & Seeta and the indomitable Daara Singh as Hanuman (can't think of anyone else as Hanuman, can we now?!). Cities wore a deserted look on Sunday mornings when Ramayan was aired, as if a curfew has been imposed, and there dare not be a power-cut for the half hour! Recently Imagine TV also produced Ramayan, but could not capture the audience's attention as the earlier one. An original is an original, after all!
The mega-serial was soon followed by another epic, of truly gigantic proportions...Mahabharat, produced by B R Films. Producing this serial must have truly been a herculean task, for Mahabharat has no. of stories woven into one. Very soon Mahabharat commanded the same attention as Ramayan and soon on every Sunday, Suresh Wadekar echoed from every television. Harish Bhimani was the voice of "time", who acted as the narrator of the tale. People waited with bated breaths, wondering who will play the "pandavas", initially disappointed but soon warmed upto them. Nitish Bahardwaj played "Krishna" and till today finds himself bound by the image.
This was the time of weekly episodes, not daily soaps and "maha episodes". Everyone waited eagerly for their favourite ones. Much before ACP Pradyumna and his "daya darwaza tod do" CID gang came to investigate crime, Karamchand jasoos had already made his mark. Along with his scatter-brained secretary Kitty, he solved many-a-complex murders. Pankaj Kapur & Sushmita Kitty Mukherjee made an unlikely crime-fighting team, which endeared themselves to the audiences.
DD also supported a whole genre of comedy. Good clean family entertainment unlike the comedy shows of today, which rely heavily on slapstick and double meaning dialogues. The top-of-the mind recall goes to Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. Who can rival this iconic serial? The serial written by comedy writer Sharad Joshi starred Shafi Inamdar and Swaroop Sampat as the husband wife duo Ranjit and Renu Verma. The serial also starred Rajesh Bedi as Renu’s unmarried unemployed brother, while Satish Shah played a different part in each serial…and enthralled everyone with his comic timing!
While talking about the comedy genre, it would be sacrilegious not to talk about Nukkad…a serial about a street corner; which could have been anywhere in an Indian metro. The daily trials and tribulations of the residents of this street corner managed to make a place in every DD watching Indian’s heart. The serial co-directed by Kundan Shan and Saeed Mirza, starred Dilip Dhawan (the heart of gold “Guru”), Rama Vij (lovable teacherji), Avtar Gill and Pavan Malhotra amongst many other memorable characters.
And then there was “Wagle Ki Duniya” ; a satirical take on the struggle of the common man. Starring Anjan Srivastave and Bharati Achrekar, this serial soon became a mass favourite.
I remember serials on DD such as Ek Kahani, Darpan, Kathasagar; which featured adaptions of stories by award winning writers of Hindi and other regional languages. In today’s world of daily soaps and saas-bahu dramas, which cannot distinguish themselves from each other; one feels the need of powerful writing. There is no dearth of writers only experimental production houses. Maybe if they look beyond the “K” fascination! I wonder who would take the time and the effort that Govind Nihalani took to televise Jawahar Lal Nehru’s Discovery of India?
Talking about diversity in serials, I can’t help but remember Gul, Gulshan, Gulfam; which portrayed the life of a Kashmiri family making a living with their 3 house boats. The patriarch of the family was played by the very talented Parikshit Sahani and Radha Seth as his wife. The serial shot in Srinagar also starred Pankaj Berry, Neena Gupta and Kunal Khemu.
Looking back there are so many wonderful memories of DD; Many serials that became a part of our lives, conversations, heated debates and now our memories. Serials that gave us the badshah of Bollywood; Shah Rukh Khan (fauji, doosra Kewal). The quiz shows that everyone watched with rapt attention, the half an hour of cartoons on Sunday; that any day beat the 24 hr cartoon channels. Not to forget the Sunday movie, the chitrahaar…who needed MTV and channel V?! This was the time when DD ruled and the TV had not turned into the idiot box. The television actors of the time were not one-soap wonders, but were a talented group of actors who made their presence felt by strong characters. Today we may never see an actor again, nor remember their real names, but we will always remember Sudhir Pandey, Neena Gupta, Pavan Malhotra, Shafi Inamdar amongst many many other talented actors. DD might have lost its sheen in the glossy world of HD TV and 24 hr channel, but in my mind DD is a special memory which always puts a smile on my face. I might have missed so many serials which u might remember, do share ur special memories!
