Old Doordarshan Serials. A dedication to the truly excellent works of art from early Doordarshan days! List of programs broadcast by DD National. Jump to navigation Jump to search. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Do you remember the old Doordarshan characters whom you watched leaving all other important things, years or may be decades ago? Those days, Television was not available 24/7. We used to wait whole day to watch our favorite TV serials. As Doordarshan was the only channel, remote controls were not the part of the living room. However, its shows and characters always fascinated and mesmerized the people from my generation and that is still nostalgic about it.
Those days, there was no choice, only one television channel – Doordarshan and a standard set of programs but the quality of programs was more superior to what we have today, hundreds of channels where either you have third grade reality shows, Saas bahu drama or news shows where everything is breaking news. Today, I am going to have a recap of some of the most popular Doordarshan characters who still have some space in our memories.
Ram :: Ramayana :: Played by Arun Govil
Close your eyes and try to imagine Ram, you will definitely visualize Arun Govil as Ram. This is the level of popularity of Arun Govil who played these charactes.
Krishna :: Mahabharat :: Played by Nitish Bhardwaj
It was due his popularity that after the serial, Nitish Bhardwaj was elected from Dhanbad in 1991 on a BJP ticket.
Basesar Ram :: Hum Log :: Played by Vinod Nagpal
Vinod Nagpal played this role in Hum Log. He was alcoholic father with a dark, sarcastic sense of humour. He was the live face of middle class appointment viewing in contemporary India.
Veerawali :: Buniyaad :: Played by Kiran Joneja
Kiran Joneja shot into the limelight with her role as Veerwali in Buniyaad. She also acted in popular Doordarshan serials like Mahabharat, Yug and Swabhimaan.
Rajani :: Rajani :: Played by Priya Tendulkar
Priya Tendulkar rose to national fame with her TV series Rajani (1985) where she played a housewife who can’t stand any injustice and solves public social issues. Her portrayal of Rajani made her a household name all over India.
Karamchand :: Karamchand :: Played by Pankaj Kapur
Karamchand was India’s first detective TV serial. Pankaj Kapur played the role of Jasoos Karamchand. This serials became a big hit and he became a household name.
Shaktimaan :: Shaktimaan :: Played by Mukesh Khanna
Mukesh Khanna played the role of Shaktimaan and his alter-ego Pandit Gangadhar Vidyadhar Mayadhar Omkarnath Shastri, a photographer for the newspaper Aaj Ki Aawaz. It was one of the most popular and longest-running television series for Indian children on the Doordarshan channel.
Abhimanyu Rai :: Fauji :: Played by Shah Rukh Khan.
Fauji starring Shahrukh Khan went on to become a mega success. The magic of Fauji transformed him into an overnight celebrity. The character played by Khan (Abhimanyu Rai) gained instant popularity due to the brilliant writing, shooting and editing of the team of creators who were all young and deeply committed.The character of Abhimanyu Rai was based on the exploits of Lt Col Sanjoy Bannerji of the Bombay Sappers, Indian Army.
Byomkesh Bakshi :: Byomkesh Bakshi :: Played by Rajit Kapur
Byomkesh Bakshi (1993) directed by Basu Chatterjee was the critically acclaimed television adaptation of the series. Actor Rajit Kapur played the role of Byomkesh Bakshi, for which he was highly praised. Ajit was played by K.K. Raina and Satyaboti was played by Sukanya Kulkarni who was the first actress to play the character. The series lasted for 33 episodes.
Budhai Ram :: Neem ka Ped :: Played by Pankaj Kapur
Pankaj Kapur played bonded labourer 'Budhai Ram' who lives in a village with a Muslim Zamindar (landlord).
Shanti :: Shanti :: Played by Mandira Bedi
Shanti was first ever daily soap on Indian television. Mandira Bedi played the lead role in the serial.
Kalyani :: Udaan :: Played by Kavita Choudhary
Doordarshan Telugu Old Serials List
Udaan was based on the struggle of a woman aspiring to be an IPS officer. It was probably the first Indian television show on women empowerment. The serial is inspired by true story of Kavita Choudhary’s elder sister Kanchan Choudhary who after several hardships went to become the first female Director General of Police. The direction and performance of Kavita Choudhary were applauded and loved by the media and the public.
Mr Yogi :: Mr. Yogi :: Played by Mohan Gokhale
Mohan Gokhale played the role of a NRI who comes to India to get married. The story revolves around his search for a perfect bride.
Samir Diwan :: Dekh Bhai Dekh :: Played by Shekhar Suman
People still remember this comedy serial for the fantastic performance of Shekhar Suman.
Mungerilal :: Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne :: Played by Raghubir Yadav
Mungerilal is a small time clerk who gets bossed around by his wife at home and by his boss at office. To top that, his father in law rubs salt on his wounds by exaggerating his own achievements as a Police Inspector. He overcomes all this by day dreaming, where he takes revenge on his boss, his father-in-law. He also dates his beautiful colleague. As he basks in the glory of his accomplishments, his wife wakes him up to ruin dream.
Raja :: Yeh jo hai Zindagi :: Played by Rakesh Bedi
Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi was the first sitcom and one of the biggest hit shows on Doordarshan. The serials revolved around funny happenings in the lives of Ranjit Verma (played by actor Shafi Inamdar) and Renu Verma (played by actress Swaroop Sampat, a former Miss India 1979), who play a married couple along with Renu’s unmarried and unemployed younger brother Raja (Rakesh Bedi).
Guru :: Nukkad :: Played by Dilip Dhawan
The serial and the character played by Dilip Dhawan received tremendous response from the viewers
Srinivas Wagle :: Wagle Ki Duniya :: Played by Anjjan Srivastava
Wagle Ki Duniya starred Anjan Srivastav as a bumbling sales clerk in a multinational and Bharati Achrekar as his wife. The series was hit and made Anjan Srivastav a household name.
Jaspal Bhatti :: Flop Show :: Played by Jaspal Bhatti
Flop Show was an Indian television sitcom that first aired on Doordarshan in 1989. The show was written and directed by satirical humorist Jaspal Bhatti, who also played himself as the main character. His wife Savita Bhatti produced the show and also acted in all the episodes as his wife. The sitcom was a satire on the socio-cultural problems faced by the common man in India at the time. Although only 10 episodes of the show were ever produced, the show has had a long and powerful legacy.
Kroor Singh :: Chandrakanta :: Played by Akhilendra Mishra
Chandrakanta, based on the novel of Devaki Nandan Khatri, first appeared on Doordarshan in 1994. It ran for two years and the characters of Chandrakanta, Virendra Singh, Kroor Singh aka Yakoo, Badrinath became popular names.
Ramayan is a highly successful Indian television series created, written, and directed by Ramanand Sagar. The 78-episode series originally aired weekly on Doordarshan from January 25, 1987, to July 31, 1988, on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. IST.
It is a television adaptation of the ancient Indian religious epic of the same name and is primarily based on Valmiki's Ramayan and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas. It is also partly derived from portions of Kamban's Kambaramayanam and other works.
Cast
Arun Govil as Ram
Deepika as SitaSunil Lahri as Lakshman
Sanjay Jog as Bharat
Arvind Trivedi as Ravan
Dara Singh as Hanuman
Bal Dhuri as Dashratha
Vijay Arora as Indrajit
Sameer Rajda as Shatrughna
Mulraj Rajda as JanakLalita Pawar as Manthara
Jayshree Gadkar as Kaushalya
Padma Khanna as Kaikeyi
Rajnibala as Sumitra
Sudhir Dalvi as Vasishta
Development
In 1986, following the moderate success of his television series Vikram aur Betaal and while he was in the midst of producing Dada-Dadi Ki Kahaniyan, Ramanand Sagar approached executives at Doordarshan about the possibility of producing a serialized version of the Ramayana, of which Sagar was a lifelong devotee. The idea was initially rejected, then revived, but delayed due to concerns that such a television series might lead to a rise in communalism. Finally, the show was indeed approved for 52 episodes (which would later be expanded twice in response to the series' overwhelming popularity, each time by 13 episodes, bringing the total to 78 episodes), and was given the unpopular time slot of Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m.[4] Doordarshan budgeted Sagar Rs. 100,000 per episode. Among the reference sources for the TV series, the producers used the seven volumes of critical edition of the Ramayana published by the Oriental Institute in Vadodara.
Popularity and influence
During its original broadcast, Ramayan was enormously popular, drawing over 100 million viewers.[2] Although rising slowly at first, its popularity reached a point where the entire nation of India 'came to a virtual stop as nearly everyone who could gain access to a television stopped what they were doing to watch the televised adventures of Rama.'[6] In a phenomenon that the newsmagazine India Today dubbed 'Ramayan fever,' religious services (Hindu and non-Hindu) were rescheduled to accommodate the show's broadcast; trains, buses, and inner-city trucks stopped running when the show was on; and, in villages, hundreds of people would gather around a single television set to watch the show.
At the time, Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi stated, 'Ramayan has stirred the imaginations of millions of viewers. It has imbibed the great Indian culture, tradition and normal values especially in the young.'
While religious-themed films had been produced since the beginning of Indian cinema, Ramayan was the first Indian television series based on religious stories and is widely credited with inspiring the production of many other religious television series, most notably B. R. Chopra's Mahabharat, as well as series such as Vishwamitra, Buddha, and Sagar's own Luv Kush and Krishna, while also inspiring the production of historical dramas such as Chanakya and Shyam Benegal's Bharat Ek Khoj.
Critical reception
The series was initially criticized by both urban Indian and Western film critics as being slow in pacing, melodramatic, and having poor production quality. As the series' popularity grew, eventually making it (at the time) the most popular series in the history of Indian television, many critics wrote articles in the Indian press and held discussions on Indian television, analyzing what caused such a program to reach such a level of popularity.
World record
At the time it aired, Ramayan quickly rose to become the most popular program in the history of Indian television, a title it held until B. R. Chopra's Mahabharat aired, which was after the end of Ramayan's original run. Subsequently, through re-runs and video productions, Ramayan regained popularity and was listed in the Limca Book of Records as the world's 'most viewed mythological serial' until June 2003
RAMAYAN by Ramanand Sagar - T V SERIAL