Son Prem Sagar received the award, bestowed to Maharishi Ramanand Sagar, Tulsidas of modern times, from the lotus hands of Param Pujya Morari Bapu... BY Sulena Majumdar Arora

Valmiki, Vyas and Tulsi Awards were organized in a very divine atmosphere in the presence of Pujya Morari Bapu, at Kailash Gurukul in Bhavnagar district, on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the great Saint Tulsidas ji, the author of Ramcharit Manas as well as many other texts.

Many eminent, great, intellectual personalities, scholars, sages and were present on the occasion. This divine program was organized to give recognition to all the legend personalities like Dr. Ramanand Sagar,who is considered to be Tulsidas of the electronic age, for their immortal, valuable creations, which is held every year.

This year, nine dignitaries were selected for their contribution in various fields and were honored at Kailash Gurukul in Mahuva on Thursday.

Valmiki Award was given to Madhvacharyaji Maharaj of Ayodhya, Vijayshankar Devshankar Dayashankar Pandya of Ahmedabad and to the great, world famous Saint, writer, film/ TV series director, producer, thinker, Tulsidas of modern times, late Dr. Ramanand Sagar. The award, on his behalf, was accepted by his son, well-known film, TV and web series producer, world-renowned cinematographer Prem Sagar.

When Shri Prem Sagar was handed over this award from the lotus hands of Pujya Morari Bapu, he followed his Putra dharma and received the award and honour, by presenting the picture of Ramanand Sagar जी.

He said that only his father Ramanand Sagar ji has the right to receive this honor from the lotus hands of Morari Bapu, as he is the one who has done all the hard works and achievements.

Shri Prem Sagar said in his speech, "What can I say in this great assembly, in front of so many great scholars, great personalities? I am smaller than an atom. At the spiritual level, I was blessed with Bapu's blessings..and I am in bliss.

Not everyone gets the fortune of opportunity to be made a medium to rewrite this great poem in a new language. Lord Valmiki wrote it in poetry, Tulsidas ji wrote it in the script when the script form was formed. And let me tell you that in this electronic age, the person who was sent by the divine power, to create this epic through electronic means, was named Chandramouli by birth.

It is also the name of Lord Shiva and it is well known to all, that for the first time in this world, Lord Shiva had narrated the Ramayana to Devi Parvati ji, while Kag Bhushundi ji (divine crow) was sitting there listening to it , then Kag Bhushundi ji took it further by narrating the Ramayan to Garuda .

And then Tulsidas ji's narrated it through his Mahakavya (poetry). And then in Today's modern India, the person who was born in this electronic age by the name of Chandramouli was sent here to revive our Sanatan Dharma for today's generation through television, the electronic medium.

He produced and directed Ramayana on TV with the name of Ramanand Sagar. In his childhood, when Ramanand ji, (who was born under the name of Chandramouli) was being renamed, he was named Ram Anand.

This cannot be a co-incidence, who knew at that time that this man who was a struggling artist, struggling writer, and later who made super hit commercial films like Arzoo, Aankhen, Geet, Laalkar, Charas, he would one day, compose the historical TV serial **Ramayana**.

Actually, he did not do these deeds by himself, but there is some power which used to get him done.When Ramanand ji first came to Mumbai, and went to Charni road, he saw the vast ocean there, he stood on the road, he was amazed to see so much water for the first time in his life, he saw Varun Devta in the form of ponds, lakes and rivers, but seeing the vastness of the ocean, he stood with folded hands and said, "Varun Dev, I have come to this city of Kubera (Mumbai), have mercy on me. (Prem ji became emotional while speaking.

Tears rolled out ) and then, an eight or ten feet high wave came gushing with a boom, and returned after making a whirlpool-like circle around Ramanand ji's feet who was standing on the distant road with folded hands and he got the message spiritually, that from today his name will be Sagar.

These are the messages that are conveyed to us by our Kuljan, Gurujan, Devjan, which we do not understand. So from that day he became the ocean of joy of Rama. It is my fortune that I was born as the son of such a great saint, sage Maharishi.

Beyond the relation of father and son, I had a different spiritual relationship with him, Pitra rin can never be repaid, putra dharam can never be perfect whatever you do. This book which has been inaugurated by Bapu ji today is on his biography.

I asked my father one day, "papaji, Why only Sagar?" So he replied, "Look, this ocean means Varun Dev, he does never ask anyone of his caste, religion, , clan, distinction, whether knowledgeable or ignorant, and benefits all, in the same way I also decided that whatever I will make, It will be for all caste, religion, no discrimination, no limit, no boarder."

I remember, when I started marketing Ramayana, I captioned it, "The Greatest Hindu Epic" But Sagar ji said, "No, why this has to be Hindu epic only? It is for everyone, When Ramayana was telecasted, the traffic on the roads of Lahore used to stop, people in Karachi did not come out of the houses, so they could watch this great show.

Then why should we say, it's only for Hindus, it is for everyone. Ramayana is not limited to any one religion, it is a confluence of four Vedas. Hence it is the Greatest Indian Epic. India's biggest epic."

From that day on, I also considered him as my guru of marketing. .Yes, it is true that I technically stayed with him, gave many special effects, we didn't have much money, when we wanted to create a palace, we were in a fix as how to show the magnificent roof top of the palace, how to show clouds in night scenery , for this we used to stick cotton every where to give the cloud effects.

We had to face many troubles while making the Ramayana. The ministers and the bureaucracy tried a lot to stop the Ramayana from being made, but 'jaako raakhe saiya, maar sake na koye, and Ramayana was made.

People pushed so hard. If you all remember, a political party had only two seats before Ramayana, 87 after Ramayana and 185 after 'Krishna', and today they are the government, but till date they have given only Padma Shri to Ramanand Sagar, this thought stings in my soul like a thorn. That's why I am saying, I request Bapu, that please think about it whenever you can. Jai Shri Ram."

Overwhelmed by this emotional expression of Prem Sagar ji, I asked him, "while giving the speech, you did not have any paper in your hand, and you, who always spoke English or Urdu mixed Hindi, but in that speech, how were you speaking such pure fluent हिन्दी?

To this he said, "I don't know, it might be the grace of Mother Bhagwati ji, and maybe my Kundalini was awakened at that time, I don't know, whatever emotion came in my mind, I went on speaking.

There was some power..." Then we started discussing the topic of power. He said, "There is indeed some power, otherwise we would not have been able to reach the great, divine program that day."

Actually we wanted to reach Mahuva Gurukul through diu that day which would have taken us to our destination in an hour, but the flight got cancelled, seeing no other way we thought, we will not be able to join such a great program, but I had four Devis with me, My Both daughters, my wife and my granddaughter, they insisted that we have to reach the program, so now who could have stopped me from moving forward? So we took a flight to Rajkot which took us there in four and a half hours instead of one hour through diu.

It was raining heavily. So many obstructions crossed our paths. but once there, Atul Motors took great care of all of us and then we were able to reach in the middle of that program in six hours. Even while returning, we faced many problems.

At last we were able to reach the airport somehow, tired and exhausted, we didn't even have our food. But we returned Mumbai safely by the grace of Mother Bhagwati, though it was a very painful journey" About his experience at Morari Bapu's ashram, Prem ji said, "At Morari Bapu's Ashram, the feeling was Devine.

The love, respect, hospitality and care they bestowed upon us was remarkable, The spiritual aura that we experienced made all our journey sufferings worth.

There was such good arrangement in the ashram which I have never seen anywhere and the wonderful, incomparable radiance, lightness and purity of the atmosphere itself is such that by going there, even the most ruthless person would bow his head and become humble and pure."

Giving information about his upcoming project, web series, 'Jai Mata Vaishno Devi' by Sagar World, Prem Sagar said that soon this series is going to be released on OTT, whose story, screenplay and music have been prepared by Prem Sagar and his son Shiv Sagar.

While Our conversation was going on, Sunil Lahiri, who played Laxman in the serial 'Ramayana', visited Prem ji's office.

Prem ji introduced me to him and told him about the stupendous success of our Mayapuri magazine and how he has been associated with Mayapuri for the last forty years.

Sunil Lahiri ji told me that he had come to present a wonderful book to Prem ji called 'Lakshmila' which is based on the love story of Lakshman and Urmila, written by Shubhi Aggarwal, a young girl of eighteen years old from Kanpur. Who belongs to a Marwari jeweler's family where no one is a writer far and wide.

She has been writing it since the age of fourteen." Prem ji added that this book must be mentioned in a magazine like Mayapuri so that the girl's enthusiasm doubles up.