04 May,2021 07:29 AM IST | Mumbai | Uma Ramasubramanian
A still from Ramyug
Only months after we witnessed the re-runs of Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, director Kunal Kohli is set to offer a retelling of the ancient epic with Ramyug. The mythological outing, originally designed as a two-part film, has been converted into a web series, owing to the prevailing situation. The filmmaker is not complaining about the change of medium as he says, "The ultimate aim for all content makers is to reach a wider audience, so I am happy that Ramyug is releasing. We had close to four hours of content, so it was not difficult to convert it into eight episodes."
The MX Player series features Diganth Manchale, Akshay Dogra, Aishwarya Ojha, Tisca Chopra and Dalip Tahil, among others. The timeless appeal of the epic aside, Kohli says that the ability to enhance it with innovative technology drew him to the project. "It's an epic that has been with us since childhood. [While hearing the story], one always imagines the visuals in a particular way. With changing technology, I felt that we could take the visual to a different level."
Ahead of the show dropping online, a music video, titled Jai Hanuman, with Amitabh Bachchan on the vocals and Ustad Zakir Hussain, was released last week. Asked how Bachchan came on board the project, the director says, "When Rahul Sharma [music director] played the song for me, I told him that it would be great to have Zakir Hussian play the tabla and Mr Bachchan sing it. We both laughed at the over ambitiousness of my thought. However, when I approached Mr Bachchan, he instantly agreed. [This episode] shows that a dream, no matter how big, might come true some day."
