Welcome to Anand Sagar's Ramayan Appreciation Thread #7!
Posted On:06 January 2010 at 12:00am
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My parents have stood by me, always. I know everyone thank their parents first and foremost but they truly do top my priority list. I believe in blessings and good wishes from them. To make them proud has been my childhood wish. January 4, 2008 was I guess when my father was most happy and proud of me. What happened was, that I had not given the news of me playing the role of Ram in 'Ramayan' to my family. I believe in announcing it, only once its 100% confirmed and ready for release. So after shooting the promos, the hoardings, billboards, posters etc were put up all over Mumbai city, I started getting congratulation calls from Jabalpur, Chandigarh everywhere! It was insane! I woke up that morning and saw how our show was put up in every corner, on BEST buses etc! So I quickly called my dad to show him around. He thought I got into a fight hearing my excitement. I drove him to the Juhu Cirlce on my bike that day with him seated behind me and there was this big hoarding of 'Ramayan' put up there. I pointed towards it. First my father didn't realize. Then I told him to look closer. Only later that did it strike him, that his son was playing the lead role of Ram in the serial! Being from the army, my father is a man of very few words and seldom shows emotion. But he hugged me tight from behind and had his eyes watering. That joy, pride, happiness I felt through his hug and eyes is something I won't ever forget for the rest of my life. It was a special father-son moment. A moment of great pride for a father and happiness for his son!
Posted On:07 January 2010 at 12:00am
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After that is when "Ramayan" happened to us. Guru tried for the auditions and asked me too. So once again I followed him and we were to play Ram and Sita. In the first week itself, the production house got many calls on how Gurmeet was so widely and happily accepted as Ram. This had set a high expectation on me to play Sita as well, if not better. The script writers had modified Sita's role and added fire and justice into her personality to make it more relatable to today's woman. They were all impressed as to how naturally it came from within for me. There were times when I would get so engrossed into my role that I would cry on the injustice Sita would have to bear! I started feeling very strongly for my role. Once I thought I needed psychiatric help, I was so into my character! I remember how on the last day I cried rivers without any glycerin help! It was a big deal for me, because being able to touch the audience is hard enough, but to move your colleagues, who know you are acting as they are at the same too, is harder or maybe hardest! During my last shot, as all of us were viewing it, many of my costars cried, including Gurmeet! It was a special episode for me and made me realize how many people I might have touched. After that 'Pati Patni aur Woh' came by which Gurmeet and I both thought was perfect for us to get out of the mythological characters' moulds, set free and get ourselves identified as and by our real names. Now I'm working on myself, ready for more interesting and diverse projects, as challenging as can be
http://www.gurmeetdebina.india-forums.com/journey/
Ramayan, based on Valmiki Ramayan and Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas, as well as Chakbasta's Urdu Ramayan, is an Indian television series produced by Sagar Arrts which aired on NDTV Imagine from 2008-2009. It is also partly derived from portions of Kambar's Kambaramayanam, Bhavarth Ramayan (Ramayana in Marathi), Krittivasi Ramayan (Ramayana in Bengali) by Krittibas Ojha, Shree Ranganatha Ramayanam (Ramayana in Telugu) by Gona Budda Reddy, Ramachandra Charita Puranam (in Kannada) by Abhinavpamp Nagchandra, Adhyatama Ramayanam (in Malyalam) by Tunjat Eluchan, Shree Anand Ramayan by Pt. Ramlagna Pandey.
It is a remake of the highly successful Ramayan that was created, written, and directed by Ramanand Sagar and which aired on Doordarshan from 1986 to 1988.
This show won the "Most Promising New Show of the Year" award at Indiantelevision.com's New Talent Awards. In addition to this, Gurmeet Choudhary, who played the lead role of Lord Rama won the "Most Promising New Talent of Tomorrow" Award.
Dubbed VersionsAs part of the deal, NDTV Imagine got a revenue share from UTV after the earnings reached a particular level. UTV had paid a telecast fee to Sun for acquiring the prime time slot on the network channels. It also had the rights to sell air time.
Ramayan was dubbed into Tamil and aired (as Ramayanam) on Sun TV on all Sundays 9.30 AM to 10.30 AM in India and 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in America
The Telgu version aired on Gemini TV.
The Gujrati version aired on ETV Gujrati.
Today we both are in a nostalgic mood as its been a year since Ramayan ended. We thought why not share our thoughts on these golden days with you.
Debina: I had to cry for the last scene of the last episode, my tears far from being just on-screen became quite visible off-screen. I was in pain as my character of Sita which I had played for 1.5 years was coming to an end; I had felt Sita's pain throughout the portrayal of the character and it was difficult to see this journey come to an end. After a day or so, we all sat down together to see the episode and I had to ask Guru to tell me if people around could feel Sita's pain. It was with the death of Sita that our whole team realized that the show had really come to an end. As I narrate this day to you all, my eyes are again filled with tears. Those were really the golden days and unknowingly we created history.
Gurmeet: With the end of Sita, we all came to the realization that the show as about to end. For the first time in my life, I cried loudly like a baby. Debi somehow managed to calm me down. I still remember my last scene in which I had to walk barefoot on a hot ground and then enter a river. It was really hot that day but the pain inside me was so immense that I felt no external pain. I loved living the character and eating, sleeping, drinking Ram. I thought let me drown Ram today and though I was not required to cry for that scene, my heart was shedding a thousand tears.
Even today I miss those days but Ram went into the river and Maan emerged out. Work has to go on but the satisfaction and enjoyment I felt in portraying Ram's character is unmatched. I actually never realized how effortless my days were during Ramayan with Debina on my side but it is after the end of the show I began to miss Debina's chirpiness, her voice and having her by my side. To this day, I keep calling Deb in the middle of shooting to hear her voice as that keeps me going. We both loved Ramayan and as a couple we both really created history with the show.
Love,
Gurmeet & Debina