Dasharath (1986-1988) unknown episodes. Jayshree Gadkar. Kaushalya (1986-1988) unknown episodes. Padma Khanna. Kaikeyi (1986-1988) unknown. The stars of Ramayan attempted to carry their popularity from television into politics, with Deepika Chikhalia (who played Sita) being elected in the 1988. Even those characters who had committed evil acts (such as Kaikeyi, whose jealousy.
Life is all ha ha hee hee: Renu Khanolkar (left) and Mansi Singh, who played Surpanakha in two versions of Ramayan, at the office of Prem Sagar in Andheri, Mumbai. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty) “Laugh like a demoness would.” This was the only instruction Renu Dhariwal got when she arrived at Ramanand Sagar’s bungalow in Juhu, Mumbai, for an audition one afternoon in 1985. It took the 22-year-old a few moments to imagine herself as one before she let out a cackle that would win her the role of Surpanakha in the first televised rendition of the Ramayan, altering the course of her life. Advertising “I was just a theatre artist before but after I appeared on national television as Surpanakha, people started to recognise me on the streets, in the bus, everywhere I went,” says the actor, who has since taken her husband’s last name, Khanolkar. “I shot for two months in Umargaon and got paid a decent Rs 30,000 for it. But more importantly, that laughter opened many doors for me. It got me roles in BR Chopra’s teleseries Chunni, Surinder Singh’s National Award-winning Punjabi film Marhi da Deewa and also Hema Malini’s directorial debut Dil Aashna Hai, before I gave it all up for a career in politics.” Thirty one years since the teleseries went on air, Khanolkar’s famous laughter reverberated on national television after Prime Minister likened parliamentarian Renuka Chowdhury’s laughter to that of Surpanakha’s in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan (1987-88).
To many people, the comment appeared a slight, a means of silencing a woman who had dared to laugh at the king in his own court. The irony has not escaped 55-year-old Khanolkar. “I don’t think Modiji is aware that I am a Congress worker,” says the former vice-president of Mumbai Pradesh Mahila Congress, “But does it befit a Prime Minister, especially one who often harps on women empowerment, to make such a comment?”. Advertising A demon princess, Surpanakha in the Ramayan is widely perceived as the cause of the battle between Ram and Raavan, her brother and the king of rakshasas. “Valmiki has gone to the extent of saying there would have been no Ramayan without Kaykeyi and Surpanakha,” says Moti Sagar, Ramanand Sagar’s son, who directed the teleseries in the 1980s. Yet, Surpanakha in Ramayan is a “minor character” who features in just four episodes in a weekly series that lasted over a year. That also explains why there were so many dead ends in the search for Ramanand Sagar’s Surpanakha.
The internet, which usually has most answers, drew a blank. YouTube clips of the teleseries play without the credits. It didn’t help that “Surpanakha” is spelt in several different ways on the internet. Khanolkar’s co-actors searched their memories without success and Moti Sagar, in his 70s now, could not recollect her name either.
A large part of the records and copies of the original material have been lost in the three years since he parted ways with his brother Prem Sagar. The only hope was scanning through the CDs in the Ramayan box set, available for sale on a Canadian website. Eager to help, Meenakshi, a producer and writer with her father Moti Sagar’s production house, dug out the family’s copy and one evening, messaged screenshots of Ramayan’s credits along with a possible name of the actor. A Delhi girl, she moved to Mumbai in 1984, at the age of 20, to pursue her dreams. “I come from a conservative Punjabi family, the kind that would never allow their daughters to enter showbiz.
But I wanted to be an actor, a decision my Bengali mother supported. Without telling my father the real reason for moving to Bombay, I came here and joined Roshan Taneja’s acting classes, where was my classmate.
After that, I started to work in theatre. That’s where Papaji (Ramanand Sagar) saw me,” she says.
Khanolkar seamlessly switches between languages. She speaks Hindi with more than a hint of a Bengali accent but shifts to Punjabi as she mimics Ramanand Sagar from their first meeting at Prithvi Theatre. “He saw me play a mother in a play called Purush. When he realised I was a young girl, he was impressed and asked me to audition for Surpanakha’s role.” It would be her first screen appearance but Khanolkar did not care if she made her debut as a demoness.
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While she understood the role could bring more opportunities, it was also the character that fascinated her. “Surpanakha is the sister of a powerful warrior and scholar, Raavan. She is a princess and a shapeshifter, and the one who becomes the trigger for the most famous battle in Hindu mythology. I didn’t see any reason to let go of the opportunity,” Khanolkar says. Schrodinger crack download torrent. But her then friend and actor Rekha Sahay (now married to Congress politician from Ranchi, Subodh Kant Sahay) thought differently.