The most-watched TV programme in human history isn’t the Moon landings, and it isn’t M*A*S*H; chances are it’s Ramayan, a magnificently cheesy 1980s adaptation of India’s national epic. The show has a status in India that’s hard to overstate. Something like 80 per cent of the entire population watched its original run; in rural areas entire villages would crowd around a single television hooked up to a car battery. When the show ended, omitting the ‘Uttara Kanda’, the fairly controversial last book of the original poem, street sweepers across the country went on strike, demanding the government fund more episodes. The government caved.
But while every country has its pieces of cult media, in India the cult is literal. Some viewers would take a ritual bath before tuning in. Others would decorate their TV sets with garlands of flowers, or light oil lamps in front of the screen and perform aarti, a devotional rite in which a flame is waved in circles in front of an image of a god. And why not? There was an image of a god on the screen. He might have been played by an actor in a plastic crown, but Ramayan was a representation of Lord Ram.
Abrahamic faiths can be quite iffy about this kind of thing. At my maniacally Orthodox Jewish primary school, I was told in no uncertain terms about all the terrible punishments God periodically imposed on those of his followers who tried to make images of Him. At one point, in an art lesson, we were told to draw a picture of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments; one boy who made the mistake of depicting Yahweh as an enormous stick figure had to watch his effort being ripped up in front of the entire class.
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