Created by Sagar Arts Starring See Below Country of origin India | Directed by Anand Sagar Composer(s) Ravindra Jain | |
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Opening theme Jai Shri Ram By Suresh Wadkar and Kavita Krishnamurthy | ||
Ramayan is an Indian costume drama television series depicting the story of Rama and based on stories from classic Indian literature. The 2008 release is a remake of the 1980s series of the same name. The plot derives from Valmiki's Ramayan, Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas and Chakbasta's Urdu Ramayan with aspects of other works. The television series was produced by Sagar Arts and aired on NDTV Imagine.
Contents
Synopsis
Ramayan tells the story of Rama, the eldest son of Dasharatha, the King of Ayodhya. Rama is due to become king after his father’s retirement, but his stepmother, Kaikeyi wants her son Bharat to take the throne.
As King Dasharatha had earlier promised to fulfil any two wishes for her, Kaikeyi demands that Rama should be banished to the forest for fourteen years and that Bharat should be crowned as king. Dasharatha keeps his word and with a heavy heart asks Rama to leave for the forest. Rama accepts the exile and is accompanied by his wife Mata Sita and younger brother Lakshman. When Bharat learns that his mother is responsible for Rama's exile he renounces her and beseeches Rama to return to Ayodhya. Rama declines, whereupon Bharat places Rama's charan paduka on the throne as a symbol that Rama is the true king.
Bharat rules Ayodhya for the next fourteen years. Ravan, the evil King of Lanka, abducts Mata Sita, prompting Rama, Lakshman, Hanuman and his army of apes, the Vanara Sena , to rescue her and Rama to slay Ravan.
Production
Omang Kumar designed the sets and Nisha Sagar designed the costumes. Anand Sagar, son of late Ramanand Sagar, directed the series having worked on the script for about six months with this team. The series was shot at "Sagar Film City" in Baroda.
Music
Ravindra Jain, who composed music for the 1980s series returned as composer. Playback singers included Kavita Subramaniam and Suresh Wadkar. An audio CD with 17 bhajans from the series was released in 2009 with lyrics/music by Jain and the voices of singers Suresh Wadkar, Kavita Subramaniam, Sadhana Sargam, Satish Dehra, Pamela Jain, Ravi Tripathi, Amaye Daate, Rekha Rao, Prem Prakash, Kuldeep, Subhash Srivastav, Sanket, and the composer himself.
Dubbed versions
The Malayalam version of Ramayan aired on Surya TV and featured songs sung by Unni Menon. Ramayan was dubbed into Tamil and aired on Sun TV from October 2009. The Telugu version aired on Gemini TV. The Gujarati version aired on ETV Gujarati.