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Over view
:
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.
During its original broadcast, Ramayan
was enormously popular, drawing over 100 million
viewers. 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." 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.
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