`Mahabharata’—Kashmir’s last peaceful TV serial

By: B Revti

`Mahabharata’, a Hindi-language epic television serial based on the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, is perhaps the last television serial which the Kashmiris watched back then, when the peace of the bygone era still prevailed.

  The original airing, which consisted of a total 94 episodes, were broadcast from October 2, 1988 to 24 June 1990 on Doordarshan. Majority of Kashmiri Pandits had left Kashmir by March 1990.  Even as the battle between good and evil was shown on a small screen, Kashmir had surely by then turned into Karukheshtra of other kind.

     Produced by B. R. Chopra and directed by his son, Ravi Chopra, the Music for Mahabharata   was composed by Raj Kamal, with an able  scripting by Pandit Narendra Sharma and  Rahi Masoom Raza.

Each episode used to be of 40–46 minutes long with a title song that consisted of lyrical content and two verses from the Bhagavad Gita.  The title song and verses rendered by Mahendra Kapoor were followed by a narration by Harish Bhimani as a personification of Time, detailing the current circumstances and highlighting the spiritual significance of the content of the episodes.

  The Wheel of Time never stops!