Ramanand Sagar ek insaan jo farishta banaa aur chamatkaar bhi (Sagar kabhi behna rokta hai?)

Ali peter john….

I, firmly believe that whenever god is in a good mood or when he is worried about the state of the world and the men and women. He has created in all his omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience, he works with all his all-powerful will and creates one of his very special creations to prove to the world that he is still the creator of the world who is the only protector and saviour of the world and man he has created in all his love. I have met and have been assosiated with some of these precious creations of the almighty and Ramanand Sagar is one of the best of god’s best witness to his sovereignty. God gives these special creations some special powers and even makes them capable of working miracles of their own lives and work miracles in the lives of all those who come into their lives….

Ramanand could have been a baby who would have been born in a royal family on a family of saints and Sufis but, he was born in a lower middle class family in a village in pre-partition Lahore. He had all the odds going against him which could have kept him away from being educated, but he had that invisible force guiding him which led him to seek and find the best kind of education during the times he lived in as a boy.

He had fallen a victim to tuberculosis (tb) but even in those trying circumstances, but he turned adversity to his advantage and wrote a dairy from his sick bed which was titled “Maut ke bistar se” (diary of a tb patient). The diary brought him all the recognition and showed the signs of Ramanand Chopra turning into a leading light of the future. It was the time when the struggle for freedom (azaadi) was at its fiery peak and the scourge of the partition was worse than what hell could have been. Ramanand opted for India and the hurts, the humilation and the nearly death-like situations he experienced while crossing into India aroused and awakened the writer in Ramanand and he gave expression to his experiences and those of millions of peoples in his book, “aur insaan mar gaya” which had an introduction written by k.a. Abbas and the book created a sensation all over and was translated into twelve different languages all over the world.

Ramanand and his family landed in Bombay, hungry, homeless and hopeless. He could see, know way out of the situation he and his family was caught in. One morning, he walked to the juhu beach and talked to the sagar(sea) and told her about his plight and told her that only she(sagar) could protect him, save him and give him a place in a city where he didn’t know anyone and had no place to call his own and had nowhere to go with his family. Within a few seconds, a large wave came towards him and surrounded him and ramanand felt and believed that he had been welcomed by the sagar(sea) in Bombay and that was the moment when he decided to call himself Ramanand sagar. It was the first of the many miracles he was destined to work in the dream and nightmare city of Bombay.

He was keeping himself and his family going with his writings, and the second big miracle was when two of his writer friends asked him to try his luck in films. He worked as an assistant director on an english film. He was also a known name in theatre circles, but his first big break as a writer in films came when he wrote “barsaat” for raj Kapoor. The film was literally a rain of success not only for raj Kapoor, but also for everyone associated with it, which included the man now known as ramanand sagar. His reputation spread and he was soon writing some of the most successful hindi films made in the south, films like ghunghat, paigham, zindagi and others.

The experience had given him the courage and the confidence to direct his own films and he directed films like mehmaan and baazuband, but the divine force which was guiding him perhaps wanted him to take some hard knocks which would lead him to a better state in life. Ramanand sagar now knew that it was jeena yaha marna yaha for him and his family. He founded sagar arts international, his own banner under which he went on to make big films like arzoo, aankhen, lalkaar, charas, jalte badan, geet, baghawat and others, most of which were huge successes. His banner was one of the most respected in the industry by now.

But the divine force had other and more meaningful plans for him to work his own miracles. He was slowly losing interest in the kind of films that were being made and looked for ways of giving vent to his talent and by some quirk of chance or call it the call of the divine force, he was attracted to the new medium of television. And made a few serials for t.v. But the purpose for which god had created him and brought to life on december 29,1917. The divine force was now working in him and on him and driving him to the ultimate goal he was created to reach.

He was a man who was always inclined towards the spiritual and the divine. He was a true follower of all that was of god in this world of man and the material. It was a tight-rope walk for him as he was very much a part of this world and the world of entertainment for years. But when the time for the big change in him had to come it just came like a gush of wind from some other world as it were and swept him away from all the attractions of the world to a world which very few humans were truly aware of.

He went into a world of the gods and godeesses, saints and sinners and after several months of introspection and travelling within him, he discovered the truth about himself. He knew that he was a modern tulsidas who just had to recreate the story of the ramayan told by the original tulsidas thousands of years ago. And once he started working on his dream destination(ramayan) he stopped being the materialistic man of this world and was transported into a world for which he was created hundred and three years ago.

What started as an experiment turned out to be one of the most exciting and enlighting explorations of our times. Ramanand sagar’s ramayan created a spiritual revolution not only in the country of the ramayan, but also in countries all over the world, surprisingly even in countries where people didn’t believe in religion, god or spirituality. The new ramayan created by ramanand sagar for television had created a miracle, the greatest miracle worked by dr. Ramanand sagar who was destined to work other miracles, but this undoubtedly was to be his most incredible miracle.

That dr. Ramanand sagar was more of the other world than the world he was born in can be felt from the way he kept his entire family together under one roof for years. He was husband of leelavati, the women who stood by him and with him through all the ups and downs till the very end, he was the father of five sons and one daughter  (subhash, shanti,anand, prem and moti and  sarita). He is the head of a joint family which consists of his sons, daughters in law, grandsons, granddaughters and great grand children.who live in two huge houses, in juhu in bombay, both named after him.

Dr. Sagar may have done a world of good to millions of people and i am fortunate that he was very close to me. He was the first big filmmaker who together with his sons made me feel at home. He was present at all my family functions. I must recall the evening when i was having a christian ceremony for my daughter swati. We were living in an area thickly populated by muslims. Bombay was on fire due to the hindu muslim riots all over the city, but i didn’t want to stop the ceremony and i had to just mention the ceremony to dr. Sagar who was in the eye of a storm because of the ramayan. Not only agreed to be present at the ceremony, but also raised the toast at the ceremony as hundreds of muslims and hindus together with any number of policemen with guns in their hands looked on helplessly till dr. Sagar and dara singh (who played hanuman in ramayan) walked upto their cars and left the place in complete peace. That visit was considered a miracle not only by the people in my area but even by the local police station and the press.

And i can never forget the evening when he called me to his cabin and after talking about various subjects said, “ali, tere paas teen naam hai, ek naam aur laga de, tera kya jayega? John ke aage sagar laga de, tumhe jo chaiye main tumhe de dunga” i thought it was a joke on his way of thinking at that time. Now, so many years later, i wish i had taken him seriously. Aakhir, mera kya jata?

Ps. I am not talking about how he died and when because i beleive that men like dr. Ramanand sagar don’t die, they only move on to spread their light in some other world which is in need of great souls like him.

sagar ne ramanand chopra ko kaise apna beta bana liya

those days , ramanand chopra had landed in bombay after going through the kind of misery caused by the ravages of the partition .....

he had his five children and his wife with him and had neither a home or ways to provide his family with any kind of food.  He had written a few books and his name and fame had reached bombay, but a name or fame could not give him and his family  their daily bread . He was in a state of despair....

it was while he was in this state that he walked to the juhu beach and walked bare feet along the shore and kept looking at the vast ocean . He was inspired  to address  the sea and the waves and said  " ae sagar maiya , main yahan akela aaya hoon tere sharan mein . Tu agar meri praarthna sunegi , toh mera aur mere parivar ka bhala ho sakta hai . Nahi toh mujhe tere sharan mein aana hoga "

he had just finished  talking to the sagar , when a large wave came up to him and surrounded him and he felt that his prayers were answered and was sure that the sagar in bombay would protect him and his family and that was the moment when he changed his name from ramanand chopra to ramanand sagar, a name that was to make history in the hindi film industry, in tv and in recreating the mythological story of the ramayan , which many beleive was responsible for the big change in  the history and politics of india.

His sons  and daughter and all his many grand children  have continued  to have sagar as thier surname. kabhi kabhi ek naam bhi insaan ki taqdeer badal deti hai , aur kaise !