146. performance
behind the serials Bunyaad and Khoj, the weekly Hindi film, and the film-clip revue
Chitrahaar in the number of advertising spots sold. But it caught up quickly, and the
average of fifteen commercials per episode during February jumped to thirty-two
by April. In June, Ramayan was earning more revenue than any program except
Chitrahaar, and it passed this competitor the following month. By August, Sagar’s
program was generating an eighth of the total income of national television. Do-
ordarshan was flooded with requests from some 135 advertisers anxious to pay Rs.
40,000 per ten-second slot to have their products plugged at Ramayan screening
time, and in September the number of commercials was increased to forty. From
that point on, Ramayan consistently outgrossed every other program, generating an
estimated weekly income of Rs. 2.8–3 million for the network.^9
What all this translates into in audience numbers is harder to say with accuracy.
Conservative estimates of Doordarshan’s daily viewership during the period range
from 40 million to 60 million, but the response to the Ramayan serial was unique.
Many sets were mounted in public locations and drew in large numbers of people
not normally exposed to television; hence the most popular episodes may have been
seen by 80 million to 100 million people—roughly an eighth of India’s population.
This figure may seem modest by Western standards (the Super Bowl reportedly en-
gages the attention of 40 percent of Americans, while the Academy Awards telecast
draws an international audience of some 300 million),^10 but it must be appreciated
in terms of the limited number and distribution of television sets in India and the
restricted availability of electricity. In fact, it represents an unprecedented regional
response to a communicated message.
This response had tangible effects that were repeatedly noted in the press. The
spread of “Ramayan Fever” (as India Today termed it) generated a flood of news-
paper and magazine articles ranging from critical analyses of the serial’s content to
sensational accounts of its fans’ behavior. Throughout most of the serial’s run, Ra-
mayan-related news appeared with almost daily regularity in local papers. Many re-
ports described the avidity with which successive episodes were awaited and
viewed, emphasizing that, for millions of Indians, nothing was allowed to interfere
with Ramayan-watching. Visible manifestations of the serial’s popularity included
the cancellation of Sunday morning cinema shows for lack of audiences, the delay-
ing of weddings and funerals to allow participants to view the series, and the eerily
quiet look of many cities and towns during screenings—a reporter in Mirzapur ob-
served, “Bazaars, streets, and wholesale markets become so deserted they appear to
be under curfew.”^11 Other articles reported the decline of traffic on national high-
ways during broadcasts, as truck and bus drivers steered their vehicles to tea shops