Ramanand Sagar's most popular mythological show Ramayan has broken all records as it returned to the small screen during the lockdown. Doordarshan brought back the classic after a huge demand from the viewers and within no time, it achieved milestones of success. The actors, Arun Govil who played Ram, Dipika Chikhlia who played Siota and Sunil Lahri who played Lakshaman, have expressed their happiness over the show receiving endless love. Sita aka Dipika Chikhlia, however, has one request from the government that they should receive Padma Awards. While Dipika is overwhelmed with the love she has been receiving, she expressed her disappointment in terms of the remuneration that she received for Ramayan.
During an interaction with Spotboye, Dipika Chikhlia said, "I am not asking for any award in this conversation with you, but am definitely going to point it out. Now, the way the Modi government has once again brought the Ramayana serial to the world, the world has also given love. Now if Modi Ji feels that Ramayana's team has done some work in culture and literature, then they should think about honouring us with Padma awards.” She also talked about the team receiving neither royalty, “This contribution of ours received neither any respect nor royalty. This is not correct. I am saying this today because people are listening to us today. We should get a good royalty"
The actress also revealed that she feels ashamed to talk about the fees she received when she shot for Ramayan and hasn't even told about it to her husband. She said, "Everyone started living in real life to drown him in his character. Viewers started thinking of artists as God, so all of us artists never did any such work for money, so that the audience wouldn’t get emotionally hurt. Today, I want to say that I did not get any National Award, nor any State Award, nor any Padma Award and the fees for working in Ramayana. It was so low that I was ashamed to tell people even then and I am still ashamed."
For the unversed, Ramanand Sagar had made a total of 78 episodes of Ramayan based on Valmiki's Ramayana and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas. For the first time in the country, the serial was broadcast from January 25, 1987 to July 31, 1988. Then, every Sunday, at 9.30 a.m. the show was aired on TV. From 1987 to 1988, 'Ramayan' became the most-watched serial in the world. Till June 2003, it remained recorded in the Limca Book of Records as "the most watched mythological serial in the world". Now it has created history once again as it beat Game Of Thrones and The Big Bang Theory to become the world's most-watched TV show.
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