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When director Chandra Prakash Dwivedi explains the contemporary relevance of Mahabharata as “the dynamics of war remains the same only the premise has changed…once it was for land. Today it could be for TRPs,” he gives away the trade behind the return of mythology on the small screen.

Yes, channels are wiping the dirt off the sacred texts to put gods amidst the clamour of saas-bahu and reality shows. It became big news when NDTV Imagine launched Ramayan in prime time. To match it Star Plus, a few weeks earlier, came up with Jai Maa Durga. It opened with the TRP of 3.6 but then petered out. The channel soon realised that there exists a hierarchy among gods as well. It raised the scales, and is resurrecting Bobby Bedi’s long pending ambitious Mahabharata project for the small screen. Meantime, Zee is working on Radha Krishna love story. Though not officially stated, it is said 9X has turned to Balaji to remake Mahabharat

While the other three are relying on newcomers, the only difference here is known television stars like Ronit Roy would be seen lying on the bed of arrows.

With the top line gone, Sony Entertainment Television quickly bought the rights of Sanjay Khan’s long forgotten Jai Hanuman from Doordarshan and has put it at 7.30 pm, which is considered to be a filler slot in the television parlance. And for those who relish nostalgia, Star Utsav is replaying Arun Govil’s Ramayan. Sounds repetitive? “In our country there is a tradition of telling kathas over and over again. We always have a Satyanaryan katha happening in some house or the other. So there is no point of boredom,” maintains Dwivedi.

Battle honours With technological advances in the field of TV entertainment, mythologicals are acquiring an epic sheen.

Talking about the catalyst, Siddharth Mukherjee, spokesperson for TAM, says Ramayan gave a great start to NDTV Imagine. The series started with a rating of 1.77 for its first episode and went up to 3.19 in a few weeks, a sort of record for a new channel. “We always knew a new channel could not cut through the saas-bahu clutter by another series in the same mould. We needed something different with a mass appeal and what better than to be termed Ramayan-wala channel,” says Shailja Kejriwal, Executive Vice President, Content, NDTV Imagine. Courtesy a tie-up with Sun TV, the dubbed version of Ramayan is reaching Tamil homes.

Shailja says the series has done something similar what Kaun Banega Crorepati did for Star Plus. “People used to come to see KBC, but stayed on for Kyunki Saas…. Here the popularity of Ramayan has a spill-over effect on the other serials of the channel taking us to the number three slot in the Hindi general entertainment space.”

Playing down the Ramayan impact, Keertan Adyanthaya, General Manager and Executive Vice President, Star Plus, contends, “We have been benefiting from mythologicals on our channel for a long time now. Apart from Jai Maa Durga’ and Sai Baba, we have also aired the previous versions of the Mahabharata and Ramayan. There have been technological advances in the field of filmmaking and TV entertainment, which allow us to retell this story in a manner that is relevant to the audiences of today. There’s a large volume of young audiences who have not yet watched the Mahabharat and would greatly benefit from it.”

Sony seems to have missed this bus. “The genre has great potential but we didn’t want to blindly follow the trend. We have put Jai Hanuman to test the mood of our audience. And we are working on a fantasy theme on a huge scale,” says Sanjay Upadhayay, Head of Programming, SET. A case of not enough gods left to invest in. “To an extent, yes. The top ones have gone and we have to keep in mind the universal appeal of a divine personality before putting Him on screen.”

While others are trying the tested, Pearl Shahi, Creative Head of Zee, claims the channel has a unique product in the form of Radha-Krishna love story. “Nobody has tried the love story aspect of Krishna before.”

However, if we look a little deeper, the change in script was imminent. “The Hindi general entertainment space has squeezed in the last three years because of the pressure from Hindi news channels, kids channels and the religious channels. In such a scenario, the channels are bound to look at innovative formats and mythology and fantasy are two of them,” says Siddharth. “The squeeze was because social dramas had reached the end of the curve and nothing new was in sight. There was a lot of negativity around with news channels adding their bit of grim news. Mythology brings a dash of optimism and values. However with everybody booking gods, this time the cycle would be small. If saas-bahu lasted for eight years, the mythology trend might be over in four years,” avers Shailja.

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