I was only 10 years old when the Ramayan series was being filmed. We often went to Umbergaon on the border of Gujarat and Maharastra where the studio was set up. The entire family was camping there for a few years till the filming took place.
I remember the white sand beaches right next to the studios, where we went for long walks, with the Saru tree forest just besides the beach. In the evenings, huge crowds would swell up outside the studio, who had come from all over the country to see the shooting. My grandfather and the actors would make it a point to go and meet them every evening and spend time with them, out of respect, due to the long journeys they had made to come and see their Ram, Lakshman and Sita etc.
We were too young to realize at that time the impact of the show and took it a bit casually. We would be woken up at 9 AM on Sunday with the taunt, that “tumhare ghar mein Ramayan ban rahi hai aur tum abhi tak so rahe ho” Wake up and watch it! We were a large joint family, and had one television screen on the 2nd floor of our Juhu Bungalow, Sagar Villa, where we would all sit together, sometimes on the floor along with all the staff, crew, visitors etc. and all watch the series together. I got hooked on and never missed an episode. I even remember I made my hairstyle a little different, curled side-locks inspired from Ram and Lakshman’s attire in the series.
The reason why I think Papaji’s (Ramanand Sagar) Ramayan has outlived its life and not B. R. Chopra’s Mahabharat or Dheeraj Kumar’s Om Namah Shivay etc. because my grandfather actually lived the Ramayan in his real life. He was without a doubt a modern-day saint who was living the Grihastha Ashram i.e. life of a house-holder. He would every morning give grains to the pigeons on our terrace and had a Rishi name for each pigeon whom he knew personally. He would tell me that great saints sometimes come in disguise of birds to meet us.
During the shooting of the series, he would only sleep for 2 hours at night. He simultaneously wrote it (would write in Urdu because he was most fluent in that language), directed it, produced it, and on top of it all managed such a big family of 5 sons, 13 grandchildren and a daughter in Delhi, without ever losing his cool. He had a very sweet diplomatic tongue, and because of his terrible childhood traumas, he made sure that every child of his was allowed to express freely and was not screamed at in a loud voice by any adult.
This new generation only talks about Spirituality because its an ‘in’ thing but the true spiritual values of patience, of maintaining relationships in spite of differences, sacrifice, helping the weaker ones overcome their complexes and mental afflictions etc. My grandmother was not an intellectual lady but a simple housewife but he would go down to any level that was required, not always staying on the level of intellectualism, in which he was a giant. He remembered by heart 40,000 sher/shairyi and spoke more than 6 languages fluently, English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Kashmiri and little bit of Farsi.
He was my boss, and when I returned to India, at the age of 22 completing my hotel management studies from Les Roches in Switzerland, my first assignment was managing our family hotel in Manali a 50-room property called Sagar Resort, which I did for 5 years. I had to report to him daily, and he found time in his busy schedule to know the happenings of the hotel.
This was before I entered filmmaking in 2008 with my first TV show on NDTV Imagine, Mahima Shani Dev Ki starring Daya Shankar Pandey as Shani Dev. For the first time, Shani was portrayed as a positive casting rather than a negative one. The show was conceived by my dad, Prem Sagar in 1992, during his Shani Maha Dasha (period) and had discussed it with his father, who dismissed the idea, saying that no one will watch a show on Shani, everyone is scared of Shani.
I truly believe that Ramanand Sagar was modern-day saint because of his super-human qualities that I was lucky to experience and see first hand in my teenage and childhood days. His Ramayan outlives every other TV show of the era because of his deep rooted spirituality, which he poured into his work. Once he took me near him, and whispered into my ears, “My Ramayan which some higher power had gotten made by me, will become even bigger, up to 50 years after my passing”. I was shocked to hear him say that to me, and that time I didn’t fully realize the meaning or the extent of his statement because it bordered on arrogance, but now I do realize what he was saying and his prophecy is coming true. I am truly blessed to be born his grandson and to continue his legacy forward.
