The Ramayana’s special place in India’s cultural memory explains why the TV series became a phenomenon, but no one could have predicted that the Ramayan would become a participatory, weekly act of devotion. As Arvind Rajagopal, professor of media studies at NYU and author of the book Politics After Television, explains, in cities across northern India public life ground to a halt. “Trains would stop at stations, buses would stop, and passengers would disembark to find a roadside place with a TV – the crowds were so big, people would be unable to see or hear the TV but the point was about being present, being there.”

Screen worship

The BBC’s Delhi correspondent Soutik Biswas wrote in 2011: “I remember the soap nearly shutting down India on Sunday mornings in the mid-1980s – streets would be deserted, shops would be closed and people would bathe, and garland their TV sets before the serial began.”

Sunday mornings were the highlight of my grandmother’s week: before the broadcast, she would burn incense and perform pooja (prayer ritual) in the home shrine, before sitting on the floor, barefoot and covering her head with a chunni, to watch the show, along with three generations of family.

My grandmother’s rituals mirrored temple conventions and the series brought the temple experience of darshan – visual communion – into homes and public spaces where it was screened. While in a Hindu temple setting, darshan is about worshippers gazing at statues of gods, with the Ramayan, Hindus were able to visually commune with Hindu gods (Ram, Laxman, Sita, Hanuman) via the TV. “It was absolutely like going to the temple – people would do pooja before the show, put garlands and tikka (red marks) on the TV; that was the kind of feeling people had for the show,” explains the actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram.